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The Magazine For ALL Commodore Computer Users

INCLUDED IN THIS ISSUE
L » World of Commodore III:

k » Exclusive information

. Jim Butterfield:

C-128ml

November 1985

^ . Steve Punter:

DIRECTORY

TPUG Magazine

NOV

Feature: C-64 and C-128 Music

8 Sound Synthesis by Tim Grantham

9 SID'S Curious Quirks by Tim Grantham

1 2 Cruising The Sea Of 64 Music by Tim Grantham

1 3 What is MIDI? by Tim Grantham

Articles

16 Commodore 128: New Things by Jim Butterfleld

18 Wireless Computing: Port II by a. vie Forde

1 9 The Wright Alignment by George K. Culbertson

20 The C1 Protocol: Port Two by Steve Punter
28 The Revival Of The SuperPET by Avy Moise

The World of Commodore III

23 WOC III Exhibitors by Liz Murray

24 The Amiga at WOC III by Liz Murray

25 Commodore in 1985 by Liz Murray

25 WOC III Seminars

26 Directory of Exhibitors

Micro Processes

27 VIC 20 and C-64 Speed Differences by Maloney

Reviews

34 Super-C by George Carter

34 Three More Spreadsheets by Dave Powell
05 BAID64 by Dave Powell

35 The Best VIC/Commodore Software by Anne E. Gudz

36 VIC 20 programs by Richard Best

36 Operation Whirlwind by Dave Dempster

38 Thinking FORTH by R.C. Walker

38 Rhapsody 64 by Louise Redgers

40 An Epyx Saga

Departments

2 Inside Information

4 Line Noise with Lana Coviello

5 The Answer Desk with Malcolm O'Brien
17 DBS Password for November

21 Marketplace

30 Additions to the TPUG Software Library

31 TPUG Software Order Form

42 Products Received by Astrid Kumas

44 Calendar of TPUG Events

45 Bulletin Board

46 TPUG Magazine Distributors
48 TPUG Contacts

48 Index of Advertisers

Inside Information

Magazine Ethics Mudslide

Magazines depend heavily on advertising for their survival.
Every magazine aims at a certain ratio of advertising to editorial
copy; when the ratio falls much below the idea!, the magazine
shrinks. Perhaps you remember the 400 page COMPUTE! of
a couple of Christmases ago. Look at the size of COMPUTE!
now, and you'll see clearly what results from a decline in adver-
tising revenue. TPUG Magazine's current size of 48 pages also
reflects the fact that computer advertising in today's market
is not as easy to get as it used to be.

Why has advertising revenue slipped so alarmingly over the
last two years? Partly because the microcomputer industry in
general is not growing now the way it was then. Perhaps also
because the massive trade in pirated software has driven a lot
of manufacturers — advertisers, that is — out of business. If
that's the case, there's a striking irony in the fact that the adver-
tising of piracy tools is bucking the trend, and booming rather
than declining.

The September issue of COMPUTE'.'s Gazette included no
fewer than 16 ads, totalling nearly 7 pages, for products whose
principal function is to copy protected software. These include
bit nibblers and cartridge copiers, products like Starpoint's
ISEPIC for making a 'snapshot' of a computer's memory and
saving it to disk, books 'exposing' protection techniques, and
even a newsletter promising instructions for cracking "3-5 (or
more) programs each month".

In a tight market, one has to sympathize with the plight of
advertising sales people and the publishers for whom they work.
To some extent, the sales of a magazine depend on being able
to print enough pages so that readers feel they are getting their
money's worth. All the same, the ads for piracy tools must, in
the long run, be counterproductive for the magazines that run
them, as well as for magazines like this one that regularly refuse
such ads. It would be startling to see burglars' accessories adver-
tised in Home Beautiful, or hot-wiring tips being peddled in Road
and Track. Why do we accept it as routine that computer
magazines should sell space to vendors whose specialty is soft-
ware theft? And why do other manufacturers, whose own
welfare is directly threatened by this practice, continue to pro-
mote their goods in those same magazines?

A further irony: we wrote to one manufacturer a few months
ago asking for a review copy of a product we felt would be of
interest to TPUG Magazine readers. The manufacturer wrote
back to say that it was against their policy to supply review soft-
ware to users' groups. No reason was given, but presumably
that policy results from the generally undeserved reputation that
users' groups have for being hotbeds of piracy. Reviews of that
manufacturer's products appear frequently in COMPUTE'.'s
Gazette, as do their advertisements.

True confessions

After writing the above editorial, which we did in a duly incensed
frame of mind, we were slightly mortified to realize that an ad
for a deprotection product had appeared in the October issue
of our own magazine (yes, that's just last month). For that we
humbly apologize. Too little vigilance and a hectic production
schedule led to what — in view of the above homily — was a

most untimely slip. Nonetheless, we stand by the argument as
written, and we'll try even harder in future to keep our own
act clean.

This month

Our cover photograph this month is the work of John J. Wood,
and was designed by Steve MacDowall of Watson-MacDowall
Inc. The large object in the foreground is a 'violin', a primitive
sound generation device with no digital circuitry. Though it has
now been almost entirely supplanted by the SID chip, in the
hands of a skilled user the violin is capable of imitating certain
synthesizer timbres with an astonishing degree of realism. Music
files generated with this instrument are widely available in both
disk and tape format, though you will need special peripherals
to run them successfully.

Our feature article on music deals not with the violin, however,
but with the Commodore 64 and 128 computers. Author Tim
Grantham compares the capabilities of the SID chip with those
of dedicated synthesizers, and gives a quick overview of the
multitude of music software and hardware that the C-64 has
inspired.

Also in this issue, Jim Butterfield gets you started at writing
machine language programs on the C-128; Steve Punter wraps
up his two-part series on his new file transfer protocol; and Vic
Forde concludes his two-parter on computers and ham radio.
In the centre of the magazine you will also find a four-page
pullout section on the World of Commodore III show, which is
coming up early in December at the International Centre near
the Toronto airport.

Micro-memo update

Ron Byers called a little while ago with a few corrections for
users of his Micro-memo program, which appeared in our Micro
Processes section in the August-September issue. To fix up your
copy of the program, load it into memory, type in the following
lines, then save it again:

30 ifpeeK<53£71>=E32thenmac

h=20:md=37136:cl =0:n=0
35 dimt^<£55) ,ms*<50>
155 print "press, space to si

mulate a call"
165 geta*: i-f a*< > " "goto290
345 geta*: i-f a$<>" "thenf or i =
lto3000!next i

Ron tells us that his BBS is now up 24 hours a day. The number
to call is 1-902-893-8742. □

Communications bloopers

We are honest as the day is long, but now and again we tell you
something that isn't true. Look on the Library Additions pages
for corrections to last month's telecommunications feature. And
while we're at it, the capacity of the Amiga's built-in 3 1/2 inch
disk drive is 880K, not the mere 800K we reported in October.

The Editors

2 TPUG Magazine

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TPUG Magazine invites you to ex-
press your views on Commodore
computing by writing to:

Line Noise

TPUG Magazine

101 Duncan Mill Road,

Suit? G7,

Don Mills, Canada MSB 1ZS

LCD True or False

To begin with, I'm definitely pro-
Commodore — I bought my youngest son
a VIC 20, my oldest was just given my
old C-64, and I have a three-day-old C-128
for myself. I use my SX-64 mostly, as I'm
a travelling field service tech.

My problem is that a year ago I bought
a 24K TRS-80 M-100 for those less-than-
one-week trips out of town. I don't like
the high cost of Radio Shack equipment
but, at the time, there was no other low-
cost lap computer. I now have a chance
to sell the M-100, but I'm only willing to
do so if Commodore is really going to
come out with the LCD!

Worry #1. Commodore is known for
testing public reaction by press releases
of equipment that's not in production.

Worry #2. 1 read in another magazine
that, at the CES show, Commodore
didn't even show the LCD and, as the art-
icle said, how can you drum up orders, if
you don't exhibit the equipment?

It is believed that TPUG has the most
clout and the largest user base ... do you
have any inside knowledge as to whether
or not they will manufacture (and sell in
the USA) the LCD?

Dutch Kuykendall
Scurry, Texas

According to one Commodore insider who
addressed the subject on CompuServe
recently, the LCD computer has, alas,
been cancelled. This news comes in the
wake of a report (in Info magazine, I
believe) th-at Commodore had developed a
display for the computer that was very
much clearer and faster than the Model
100's, The ways of Commodore are in-
finitely mysterious.

Plus/4 Minus

I fully agree with Terry Traub's article
'Plus/4 and C-16: Disappointingly
Mediocre'. I believe the underlining com-

ment is 'major marketing error'. With a
market in the millions, I believe Com-
modore could have made much more
money, and had an easier time,
marketing add-on products for the ex-
isting VICs and C-64s. At the computer
show, a Commodore representative ad-
vised me that if I was considering a home
computer for a mixture of games and
some light business applications, then the
'old' C-64 would be best. On the other
hand, if I wanted it mainly for business,
then the 'new' Plus/4 was best, due to the
built-in software.

I hope Commodore is not going to make
the same error that Tandy Radio Shack
made, that of not defining which market
they were in, and trying to be all things
to all people. Business buys the best in
both hardware and software. They also
buy 'name'. Price is not a big factor, but
performance is. As Terry pointed out, the
performance in the Plus/4 is very disap-
pointing. As a bundled package, Com-
modore used very poor software per-
formers. I guess they have not heard of
Osborne, Kaypro et cetera, who built
their market with an excellent software
package.

The new CBM products, including the
B-128, do not have a market niche, from
what I've heard. My marketing strategy
would have been an improved C-64,
and/or add-ons, preferring the latter.
Then I would hold on until the new home
computer generation appears, featuring
the 'MAC type approach (680xx series),
or enter the MS DOS market with a
home/educational emphasis, although
that is a tough market.

I'm proud of Commodore being strong-
ly associated with Canada. I'm proud it
was Commodore who introduced so many
people to the wonderful world of com-
puting. They have done a fine job . . . let's
hope they know something Terry and I
don't.

TPUG, I look forward to receiving each
of your magazine editions. Great stuff!

Frank Rioux
Barrie, Ontario

Colour Hi-res

Enclosed is a short listing to be added to
Michael Keryan's great program for dum-
ping colour high resolution graphics to
dot matrix printers. The original three-

part article appeared in the late, great
Micro Magazine (#73, 74 and 75). Each
colour has to be put on one at a time with
a separate coloured ribbon. Keryan's pro-
grams were difficult to use in one way:
aligning the multiple passes of the printer
so that the colours line up. He advises
that it is important to set the printer in
'unidirectional print' mode; this helps
with dots that intersect horizontally, but
are no help for vertical alignment.

My printer is a C. Itoh Prowriter, and
it can automatically reverse the direction
of the paper feed (escape CHR$(114)
reverses; escape CHR$(102) forwards). I
have added lines 1340 through 1360 to
automatically align the print head. Also,
a GOSUB 1340 is added to Keryan's line
1330. These lines return the printer
precisely to the beginning of the printed
page between each print pass.

1330 sysE0430:gosubl340:
go-to 1 1 10

1340 close4 : open4 ,4:pr in
ttt4,chr*(£7)chr*(11.4)ch
r*(£7V'tlG n ;

1350 pr in-t^chrSaEIichr-
iraHlXrhri^^^rirSnOS);

1360 close4:return

Brian Schott
Decatur, Georgia

IEEE meets B-128

In a past issue, a reader wanted to know
why the B-series would not work without
all the devices turned on. The reason is
the IEEE bus is handled differently. The
REN line of the bus is not permanently
grounded anymore, therefore allowing
other devices to act as controller on the
bus. While this has some advantages, cer-
tain devices ground this line when turn-
ed off. Thus, the B-128 will 'hang up'
when this condition occurs. A possible
software cure for this condition was
discovered by using an 8300P IEEE
printer with the B-128 system. The ready
light will flash each time the B-128 ac-
cesses the bus without the above poke be-
ing done. This flashing is the B-128
grounding and releasing the REN line.

David L. Evans II
Caldwell, ID

Line Noise presented by Lana Coviello

4 TPUG Magazine

The Answer Desk

with Malcolm O'Brien
Reviving aged PETS

Regarding the article by John Kurczak,
'Ye Olde Pette 80 — It Already Exists',
in the May 1985 issue o/TPUG Magazine:
the modification mentioned is truly
needed, if we old PET users are going to
continue using the PET. John 's descrip-
tion of the Microcomputer Services
modification is intriguing; and I am
ordering my kit today.

John also mentioned a 64K conversion
kit that I am very interested in learning
about. There must still be many PET
users around, and any information
regarding upgrades andlor software is
greatly appreciated — especially if it
allows me to triple my memory.

One area that I have seen lacking is in-
formation on transferring the wealth of
C-64 programs to the PET. There are
some routines that allow simple C-64 pro-
grams to be transformed, but I have not
seen any that would handle all the dif-
ferences, including peeks and pokes. Do
you know of any reference books or pro-
grams that might be helpful in this area?

Mel Johnson

San Jose, California

For information on the 64K memory ex-
pansion for PETs, check out our Micro-
processes section last issue. There is no
general procedure for converting C-64
programs to run on the PET. The main
difficulty, of course, is that many of the
most characteristic C-64 features —
sprites, SID sound, colour graphics —
cannot be translated to the PET by any
means whatsoever. The first step in con-
verting programs is therefore to remove
any portions that make use of the above
features. If what remains is still worth
converting, the remaining steps may not
be too difficult. Briefly, you will have to
look at:

• changing the program load address to
1025 ($0401), since the PET does not do
relocating loads;

• altering any direct references to screen
memory, which is usually at 1024 ($0400)
on the C-64, but 32768 ($8000) on the
PET. Extra work will be required if you
are adapting to an 80 column rather than
a 40 column PET;

• if the program accesses disk, you may
want to make adjustments suitable for a

dual disk (4040 or 8050) rather than a
single disk (1541), possibly making use of
BASIC 4.0 disk commands, if your PET
has them;

• a few BASIC commands operate
somewhat differently on the PET than on
the C-64. An important instance is the IN-
PUT command, which was improved on
the C-64 to handle a null response without
returning to direct mode.

A good place to look for further informa-
tion would be the books by Raeto Collins
West, Programming the PETICBM and
Programming the Commodore 64, which
are widely distributed, comprehensive
and authoritative.

A VIC Compiler?

I've been using the VIC 20 for many years
now and find it a super computer. I
haven't 'upgraded' to a C-64 because of
radio interference problems that many of
my fellow Ham Radio Operators have ex-
perienced with their C-6J,s. The VIC
radiates much less RF so I can listen to
the stations on the radio with the VIC 20,
whereas I'd be listening to the computer
if I had a C-64.

I have a fully expanded VIC (27K) and
two 1541 disk drives. That should be large
enough to hold about anything designed
for the C-64. At this point, the only dif-
ference between my VIC and a C-64 is the
sound chip and the sprite graphics,
neither of which I need for non-game,
'real' computing (database applications
and statistical analysis).

I am looking for a compiler for the VIC
20. 1 don't want one that generates 'pseudo
code' — something that requires a run-
time support package for it to work. I
would like to have one that actually
generates either assembly language
statements that can be subsequently
assembled, or one that generates the
machine code directly, ready for
execution.

Terry G. McCarty
Manassas, Virginia

Sorry, Terry. To the best of my
knowledge there never was a compiler of
any description commercially available
for the VIC 20. I suspect that fully-
expanded VICs are few and far between.
It may be that many VIC owners were
unwilling to spend the extra money to ex-
pand beyond 8K or 16K, and a lot of them
(including me!) never expanded their

VICs at all.

Of course the prospect of selling to a
limited market keeps software developers
away in droves, and this is probably the
reason why 'serious' applications such as
compilers were never really part of the
mainstream of VIC offerings; instead, the
VIC was mostly thought of (fairly or un-
fairly) as a games machine.

It may be that there is a BASIC com-
piler for the VIC lurking somewhere in
the public domain; however, it might only
use integers or work with a subset of
BASIC. You are very unlikely to find one
that will generate 6502 machine
language.

As far as your particular applications
go, the real culprit in the database ap-
plication is the speed of the 1541 drive
{zzzz . . . ), which would be unaffected by
compiling (though the transfer of data
between the drive and the computer
might be enhanced, particularly if
BASIC'S GET# statement is being used).
BASIC is certainly fast enough to keep
up with your typing while entering or
editing records. Statistical analysis is a
different kettle of fish. The speed of
memory operations is significantly
enhanced by compiling, but there is a bet-
ter solution. Take the plunge and learn
machine language. You can probably get
a HESMON cartridge for 5 to 10 dollars
these days (I paid fifty!). You can still
write a lot of your program in BASIC —
just rewrite the slow parts as machine
language subroutines and SYS to them
from BASIC.

Learning machine language is not as
horrible as it is often made out to be,
especially with the good reference
materials now available. Recommended
reading includes; Jim Butterfield's
machine language book; The VIC Pro-
grammers Reference Guide from Com-
modore (also heavily discounted these
days); and The Complete Commodore In-
ner Space Anthology by Karl Hildon
(available through The Transactor
magazine).

Naturally, this will take considerably
longer than compiling an existing BASIC
program, but the results will be dazzling!
One other suggestion is to keep watching
TPUG library listings. Statistical pro-
grams are always being written anew,
and you may find one that suits you to a
tee. D

TPUG Magazine 5

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Sound Synthesis

by Tim Grantham

The Sound Interface Device in the Com-
modore 64 has frequently been compared
to professional synthesizers costing 1000
dollars or more. This is rather like com-
paring only the engine of a Toyota Cor-
oEa to the entirety of a Rolls-Royce Silver
Shadow. Nevertheless, the SID in the
C-64 is the most powerful single-chip syn-
thesizer available in an 8-bit personal
computer today — and it does have many
features in common with performance
synthesizers. All of this was packed onto
one 20-dollar integrated circuit. It is a
feat of engineering of which Commodore
and Bob Yannes, the designer of the SID
chip, should be proud.

Most synthesizers today use subtractive
synthesis. To understand what this is, you
have to understand what 'harmonics' are.
Any note played on an instrument has a
fundamental frequency. The fundamen-
tal frequency is the lowest frequency pro-
duced by the vibrating string, skin, or col-
umn of air; it determines the pitch of the
note. A middle C played on a piano has
a fundamental frequency of 256 cycles
per second (256 Hertz). But if you were
to observe that note displayed on an
oscilloscope, you would not see a nice
clean sine wave. You would see a complex
pattern: the basic up and down movement
is still there, but there are irregularities
roughening the smooth line of the fun-
damental frequency. These bumps are
overtones, and they are what make a mid-
dle C played on a piano sound different
from a middle C played on a flute.

Overtones are frequencies present that
are higher than the fundamental frequen-
cy. Harmonic overtones ('harmonics', for
short) are overtones that are multiples of
the fundamental frequency. The greater
the number of overtones present in a
note, the richer the sound. A wooden
recorder, for example, which produces
few overtones, has a much 'thinner'
sound than a trombone, which produces
many.

If you want to synthesize the sound of
a trombone, you must generate the fun-
damental frequency, plus all the
necessary overtones in their correct pro-
portions. You could do this by assembl-
ing at least eight sine-wave oscillators,
each producing one of the necessary fre-
quencies; then carefully mixing their out-

puts to produce the sound of a trombone.
This is called additive synthesis, and it
can indeed produce amazingly accurate
imitations of real instruments. But it's
awkward, complex and expensive. How
much simpler it would be if you could get
just one oscillator to produce a 'trombone-
wave' right from the start.

Which brings us back to subtractive
synthesis. If you can get an oscillator that

. . . Whatever the

advertising hype may

say, you can't make

full use of the SID's

features unless you

have a good
understanding of syn-
thesizer technique . . .

will produce a tone with many harmonic
overtones in it, then filter out or 'sub-
tract' the unnecessary ones, you would
have your 'trombone -wave', with less
bother and less circuitry. That's why
almost all sound generators have, until
recently, used subtractive synthesis. I say
'until recently' because the last eighteen
months have seen a whole new genera-
tion of performance synthesizers. Ad-
vances in integrated circuitry, control
software and memory are permitting the
use of additive synthesis, frequency
modulation synthesis, and even digital
sampling synthesis. Of course, these pro-
ducts cost anywhere from 2000 dollars to
30 thousand dollars. Subtractive syn-
thesis is going to be around for a while

yet.

The timbre of a sound (its colour, if you
like) is determined by the number, fre-
quency and amplitude (loudness) of its
overtones. This is often referred to as the
'harmonic content' of the sound.
However, that's only half the story. The
other half is the 'shape' of the sound.
Does it start suddenly, like the sound of
a snare drum being smacked with the
stick? Or does it start slowly, like the
sound of the bow drawn gently over the
strings of a violin? Does the note die away
slowly like a struck gong, or does it stop
abruptly like a damped piano string?
Every instrument produces a sound with
a characteristic beginning, middle and
end. This is called the 'envelope' of the
sound, and it affects the way the sound
is perceived by the ear even more than
the harmonic content.

The beginning, middle and end of a
note is more commonly known among
synthesists as the ADSR (Attack Decay
Sustain Release). One can say that 'at-
tack/decay' describes the beginning of the
note, 'sustain' the middle, and 'release',
the end. All of them together form the
envelope of the note.

Our subtractive synthesizer now has an
oscillator to produce the original tone, a
filter to tailor the harmonic content, and
an envelope generator to give it a shape,
to mould it. The SID has three sets of
these, to produce three different sounds
(voices) simultaneously. Unfortunately, it
has only one master volume control. This
was done to reduce the complexity of the
chip, but it limits the degree of contrast
between the voices. You can't use volume
to distinguish what voice is 'lead' and
what voices are 'back-up'. In fact, the

The MAX keyboard from Sequential Circuits is a MIDI-lceyboard especially designed
to operate with computer equipment.

8 TPUG Magazine

volume control on the SID is its most
serious limitation. More on this later.

Let's look more closely at one of the
oscillators in the SID chip. As in other
synthesizers, we have a choice of
waveforms that the oscillator can pro-
duce: triangular, sawtooth, rectangular
(or 'pulse'), and noise. The triangular
waveform approximates a sine wave at
the fundamental frequency. The pulse
waveform contains the odd harmonics of
the fundamental frequency, and the
sawtooth waveform contains both odd
and even harmonics. The noise waveform
produces overtones that are non-
harmonic (their frequencies bear no
mathematical relationship to the fun-
damental frequency): furthermore, the
amplitude of each overtone bears no rela-
tionship to its frequency.

If you seek to synthesize a real instru-
ment, you must first decide which of
these four waveforms is closest in timbre,
and then refine it with the filters and
envelope generator. The sound of a flute
most closely resembles the triangular
waveform; a trumpet, the sawtooth. The
noise waveform is best for almost all of
the percussion instruments.

The SID chip provides three types of
niters: a high-pass, a low-pass and a band-
pass filter. The behaviour of these filters
depends on a value called the cutoff fre-
quency, which is set in an 11-bit register
in the SID chip. A low-pass filter will pass
the frequencies below the cut-off frequen-
cy and attenuate the frequencies above
it. The high-pass filter is just the reverse:
passing the upper frequencies and at-
tenuating the lower. The band -pass filter
will pass the frequencies in the immediate
vicinity of the cut-off frequency, at-
tenuating the frequencies above and
below it. You can create a fourth filter
with the SID chip by enabling both the
low and high-pass filters, and assigning
them the same cut-off frequency. This
will produce a notch filter, the reverse of
a band-pass filter. It will prevent frequen-
cies close to the cut-off frequency from
coming through. Other combinations of
filters are also possible.

The envelope generators on the SID
are very similar in function to those found
on performance synthesizers. However,
you do not have fine control over the
ADSR settings, because these can only
have sixteen possible settings each.
Dedicated synthesizers can break up the
envelope into as many as sixteen dif-
ferent sections, with each section having
an infinite range of settings. Still, you
have your choice of 65,536 possible com-
binations on the SID chip.

Continued overleaf. . .

SID's Curious Quirks . . .

by Tim Grantham

There are several interesting things
about the SID chip that are not general-
ly utilized. You can synchronize the fun-
damental frequencies of any two of the
oscillators. Varying the frequency of
the first with respect to the frequency
of the second will generate complex
harmonic structures from the first, at
the frequency of the second. The fun-
damental frequency of the second
oscillator should be lower than the first.
Ring modulation can also be created
between pairs of voices to produce bell-
like or gong-like tones rich in non-
harmonic overtones.

You can even route an external audio
signal through any or all of the filters,
controlling its loudness with the volume
nybble (half-register). In order to do
this, you need a DIN-to-RCA cable. You
can get this at stereo stores. It must be
a 5-pin DIN connector at one end, with
four RCA phono plugs at the other. On
mine, the yellow plug goes to the audio
input pin of the SID. This pin has an
input impedance of 100K Ohms. The
signal should not exceed 3 V, peak-to-
peak. It's best to use the output from
a pre-amp of some kind: for example,
the tape output jack on most amplifiers.
Resonance is another control the SID
chip has in common with other syn-
thesizers. Resonance increases the
amplitude of the frequencies closest to
the cut-off frequency of the filters. This
can give a much sharper, punchier
sound.

The SID has a couple of features that
conventional synthesizers do not have,
and the advantages they provide result
from the fact that the SID is a chip
designed for a computer, not for a
musical instrument. Under software
control, the gate and test bits for each
voice can be turned on and off. Suppose
you gated the envelope generator and
then, before the attack! decay cycle had
completed, you cleared the gate bit. The
release portion of the envelope would
start early. If you subsequently set the
gate bit to 1 before the release had
finished, the attack would start again.
You could keep attacking and releasing
indefinitely, never letting the envelope
generator complete a full cycle. This
feature allows for the creation of com-

plex envelopes, but the programming
involved would be formidable.

The same principle applies to the test
bit, only in this case setting the test bit
will cause the oscillator output to drop
to zero. Complex waveforms can" be
generated by rapidly toggling this bit.

There are also two analog-to-digital
converters on board the SID, otherwise
known as the paddle ports. The outputs
of these registers can be fed to the
other registers, just as we can with the
outputs of the third oscillator and the
envelope generator. In fact, any vary-
ing voltage — such as one from a
microphone — can be converted to
binary form (digitized), providing that
the voltage is in the to + 5 volts range.
This feature is used by the Covox voice
recognition system to record and store
real speech into the C-64's memory.

By using these features unique to the
SID, even human speech can be syn-
thesized. SAM (Software Automatic
Mouth) uses a complex algorithm to
generate artificial yet recognizable
speech. And the Covox system actual-
ly programs the SID to act as a digital-
to-analog converter, to reproduce
digital recordings of actual sounds. Not
many keyboard synthesizers can do all
this!

To summarize, the SID comes close
to matching the sound quality of
keyboard synthesizers. However, its
power is limited by the complex pro-
gramming required to operate it. This
has been mitigated somewhat with the
introduction of BASIC 7.0 on the
C-128, which has an extensive set of
SID commands. And there are a few of
the many commercial music programs
that will take you to the limits of the
SID's sonic universe.

Further information about the SID
can be found in the Commodore ftt Pro-
grammers Reference Guide, Chapter 4
and Appendix 0. This is available at
most bookstores. An excellent introduc-
tion to the fundamentals of synthesis
and recording can be found in the four-
volume set called The Synthesizer,
published by Roland, which can be ob-
tained in most musical instrument
stores. □

November 1 98S 9

Thus far, the SID offers much the same
sound generation and control features as
a keyboard subtract! ve synthesizer. You
can define pitch, timbre and loudness.
The SID has 16-bit frequency resolution,
which means that you can sweep the fre-
quency on the oscillator and not detect an
abrupt change from one note to the next.
And, as we shall see later, the SID can,
with the right programming, generate a
tremendous variety of timbres.

When it comes to volume control,
however, the SID is sharply limited. The
only way one can control the individual
volumes of the voices is to adjust their
sustain levels. Too much of this and the
actual timbre of the voice will begin to
change, as well. Furthermore, one can-
not obtain smooth changes in loudness.
These are essential to the proper phras-
ing of music, which in turn is essential to
music's power to move us. The SID's
volume can only be changed in 16 in-
crements or steps. There are no in-
between volumes. One of the reasons
Baroque music sounds good on the SID
is because it has simple changes in
volume: sixteen bars loud, sixteen bars
soft. The SID cannot produce the subtle
variations in loudness found in a piano
sonata, or a ballad: nor does it have the
dynamic range, being able to produce
only a 45 db (decibel) difference between
the loudest and softest sounds.

In early versions of the C-64, some of
the SID chips had defective filters. When
the filters were enabled, they produced
significant distortion in the sound. I
understand that current versions of the
SID have corrected this fault. Even so,
the behaviour of the filters does vary
widely from one C-64 to another, which
creates problems in transporting music
software between computers. This defect
is discussed in an article by Dr. Karel
Vander Lugt in the most recent issue of
The Transactor magazine (volume 6,
issue 4).

The envelope generators do have a
slight bounce-back problem. When the
note dies away on the release portion of
the envelope, it drops to volume, then
bounces to 1 and stays there until the
master volume is dropped to (or until
the envelope generator is gated — trig-
gered — again).

The major difference between key-
board synthesizers and the SID is, of
course, the means of programming. Key-
board synthesizers are controlled by
sliding knobs, flipping switches and press-
ing keys. The SID is controlled by stor-
ing numbers in the appropriate memory
locations, or registers. If you want to con-
trol the chip directly, you pretty well have

to know something about programming.
And poking a decimal 15 into SID
register 54296 somehow doesn't have the
same feel as jamming the volume pedal
of a Yamaha DX-7 to the floor.

Fortunately, there is a wealth of soft-
ware available to do the boring work for
us. Programming can create an interface
to the SID suitable for either someone
who knows nothing about music, or a pro-
fessional composer who knows nothing
about computers. There are also piano-
style keyboards that will connect to the
C-64, providing a more traditional
method of inputting pitch information
than the typewriter keyboard. None of
these keyboards contain synthesizer cir-
cuitry; they are merely alternative input
devices.

But packages that provide 'complete'
control of the SID are rare. Whatever the
advertising hype may say, you can't make
full use of the SID's features unless you

. . . Poking a decimal

15 into SID register

54296 somehow

doesn't have the same

feel as jamming the

volume pedal of a

Yamaha DX-7 to the

floor . . .

have a good understanding of synthesizer
technique. And the people who have that
kind of knowledge are much more likely
to invest in a dedicated synthesizer. Even
those with C-64's are probably more in-
terested in using it to control other syn-
thesizers via MIDI. Therefore, most
packages are intended for use by those
new to the art of synthesis. Most assume
a knowledge of music, and provide only
cursory explanations of musical notation.

One very powerful feature seldom im-
plemented is modulation, which is
available on all keyboard synthesizers.
The SID provides two read-only registers
that reflect in binary the output of the
third oscillator, and the output of the
third envelope generator. For example,
if the third oscillator is set to the
triangular waveform, the corresponding
output register will produce numbers
starting from 0, incrementing smoothly
up to 255, and then decrementing back
down to 0. The whole cycle repeats at the
frequency of the oscillator. With pro-
gramming, you can feed these numbers
into the other registers.

If you set the third oscillator to a fre-
quency of 7 Hertz, say, and then direct

this output to the frequency control
registers of one of the other voices, you
will produce a vibrato effect in this other
voice. In other words, the pitch would rise
and fall seven times a second. The same
triangular output could be used to mod-
ulate the volume control register to pro-
duce a steadily varying loudness, or
tremolo. Selecting a different waveform
in the modulating oscillator would pro-
duce a different effect.

For the simulation of real instruments,
the output register of the third envelope
generator is crucial. We know we can
subtract some of the harmonics in the
chosen waveforms with the filters, in
order to more closely approximate the
harmonic content of the chosen instru-
ment. However, the harmonic content of
a real instrument changes even as a note
is played. Unless we have some way of
changing the cut-off frequency of the
filters as the note is played, we will have
synthesized only the harmonic content of
the real instrument's sound as it exists
for one brief moment during the playing
of the note.

It just so happens that the harmonic
content of a note often changes in step
with the envelope of the note. When a
note is first played on a trumpet, for ex-
ample, the sound is dominated by the up-
per harmonics, producing a 'pinched' tim-
bre. As the note is held, the sound 'fat-
tens' as the other harmonics appear. As
the note dies away, so do the upper har-
monics, and the tone seems to flatten.
This can be duplicated on the SID by
feeding the output of the third envelope
generator into the cut-off frequency con-
trol of the low-pass filter. Of course, both
the third envelope generator and the
envelope generator of the other voice
should be gated at the same time. Their
respective ADSR settings should be the
same, as well. This technique will great-
ly increase the realism of the sounds.

Don't forget that this ADSR output can
be fed into the other control registers, as
well. If you feed it into the frequency con-
trol registers of another oscillator, you
can obtain 'phaser' sounds. You can also
use it to modulate the pulse width of the
rectangular waveform.

You must remember, though, that the
output of these two modulation registers
must usually be 'scaled' before it can be
used to change the other registers. The
to 255 range of these registers is usually
too wide to be used, so it must be shrunk
to fit the task.

The fun comes in experimenting with
different effects and sounds. The use of
modulation opens up a wealth of creative
possibilities. □

10 TPUG Magazine

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Cruising The Sea Of 64 Music

by Tim Grantham

In the great deluge of software for the
Commodore 64, music programs have
formed an ever-swelling river. No other
computer has even come close to gener-
ating the variety, power and imagination
put into the products available. This is in
part due to the C-64's deserved reputa-
tion as an 'Everyman' computer. It is also
a tribute to the power and versatility of
the Sound Interface Device (SID) chip
within the C-64.

Trying to navigate these swift currents
can be a problem. You can get swept
away by a product that promises you will
become an instant musician. You can sink
under the weight of a program so loaded
with features you have to have a degree
to do anything with it. In this article I will
attempt to chart these sometimes
treacherous waters, and place markers so
that you will have some means of com-
paring features.

Current music software falls into three
broad categories: the first is intended to
reach people new to music, music theory
and synthesizer technique; the second is
intended for those with a basic knowledge
of music who wish to use the unique
features of a computer to compose or
transcribe; and the third is directed to
those who have an intimate knowledge of
the SID chip and music in general. This
last group is the smallest, but the most
dedicated. They are largely responsible
for the wealth of public domain music
available. You can hear some of their
work for yourself on disks in the TPUG
(C)S series (1 through F).

Naturally, these categories overlap in
places. Simply because a program is aim-
ed at the novice does not mean it lacks
sophistication or power. Assess your own
needs, then choose a package that will let
you get started fairly quickly, yet still
leave room for growth. Questions you
might ask yourself include: Do I know
what a time signature is? Do I know what
ADSR stands for? Do I want to learn, or
do I just want to hear what I'm playing,
and share it with friends?

Let's deal first with software; then
hardware. Often both come in one
package. We will not deal with program-
ming aids such as Simons' BASIC or
Video BASIC, which both add sound com-
mands to programming languages; nor

with the growing number of products
that enable the C-64 to act as a MIDI con-
troller for dedicated synthesizers. (See
'What is MIDI?' in this issue).

Particular features to watch out for in-
clude the ability to print out your com-
position in musical notation; to accept in-
put from sources such as an add-on piano
keyboard, a joystick or a graphics tablet;
to create your own sounds (and save
them); and to tap into some of the special
features of the SID, such as vibrato and
ring modulation. Of course, you should
always look for clear, complete
documentation.

For paddlers

You can test the musical waters with
Commodore's Music Machine and Music
Composer ($14.95). These two inexpen-
sive programs require absolutely no
knowledge of music or musical notation.
Music Machine can produce vibrato, two-
voice harmony, and portamento effects.
Both programs convert the computer's
keys into a piano keyboard.

Rhythm Master ($39.95) from Melo-
dian uses a video game to train your sense
of timing and rhythm . The documentation
includes a comprehensive tutorial on
music. You can play along on the Melo-
dian Concertmaster piano keyboard (see
below), or use the keyboard on the C-64.

Two programs intended specifically for
children are Notable Phantom ($49.95
US) from Design ware, and Songwriter

($39.95 US) from Scarborough Systems.
The first program teaches children to
recognize notes on a staff and play them
on the computer's keys. The second uses
a graphics display similar to a piano-roll
on a player piano, rather than a musical
staff. Notes are placed onto the display
with a joystick or the keyboard.

You can use a joystick and literally
draw your melodies right on the screen,
with Passport Design's MacMusic
($49.95 US). This program uses
Macintosh-style icons and menus, and in-
cludes a library of popular tunes you can
modify.

If you are starting to feel more confi-
dent, it may be time to move on to the
music programs developed by Sequential
Circuits. This highly-respected syn-
thesizer manufacturer has produced a
series of programs, all of which require
the MusicMate piano keyboard (see
below). Sound Maker presents you with
a representation of a real synthesizer con-
trol panel. By pressing the keys you can
'turn' the knobs and create your own
sounds. You can save these to disk.

Song Builder constructs songs from
segments created by you when you play
the keyboard. As each key is pressed, the
corresponding note appears on a staff on
the screen. By combining segments, you
can build songs of up to 2176 notes. Song
Editor lets you combine files created with
Song Builder, and change any note.
Song Printer will print your songs in full

The ColorTone Keyboard, from Waveform Corporation, features a unique 'Touch Harp '
in addition to the regular keyboard.

12 TPUG Magazine

music notation on a 1525 printer, or
equivalent. Each program in the series
sells for $39.95,

3001 Sound Odyssey ($42.95) from
Sight & Sound uses hi-res graphics to pro-
vide a very complete tutorial on the prin-
ciples of subtractive synthesis. If you are
a musically knowledgeable person who
would like to know more about syn-
thesizer theory, this is the program for
you. This program is one of the few that
offer a complete implementation of the
SID chip's capabilities.

For sailors

The most popular music software falls in-
to this intermediate category. Most pro-
vide some introduction to the basics of
music, but their real power is realized
once the basics have been learned.

Electronic Arts' Music Construction
Set ($59.95) lets you use the keyboard,

a joystick or a graphics tablet to place
notes on a staff. It makes extensive use
of icons, and provides complete editing
and playback control. You cannot create
your own timbres from scratch, although
you can make some adjustments to the
sounds included.

Activision's Music Studio ($39.95) also
accepts input from a joystick, tablet or
the keyboard, and adds the ability to
change the settings on the synthesizer.
A unique feature is a 'paintbox' mode that
lets a non-musician paint notes onto the
staff, and then hear the results. Activi-
sion claims their product is compatible
with a MIDI interface.

Soon to be released is a MIDI-
compatible version of Broderbund's
Music Shop ($59.95). Current versions
feature Macintosh-style pull-down menus
and icons. Using a joystick or the
keyboard, you pull notes out of the 'Note
Box' and place them on the staff. You

navigate around the entire composition
very quickly, cutting and pasting at will.

Bank Street Music Writer from Mind-
scape ($69.95) is a 'notation editor' that
works like a musical typewriter. As you
enter each note on the staff from the
keyboard, the note is played. You can edit
the score much as you would edit text
with a word processor. As in Music Con-
struction Set, only limited changes can
be made to the built-in timbres.

Studio 64 by Entech ($39.95 US) has
a scrolling score. When you play in real-
time, the notes appear on the staff. With
the addition of Add Mus'In ($39.95 US),
you can add your compositions to your
own BASIC program.

When I'm 64 ($29.95 US) by The Alien
Group offers some unique features, in-
cluding filter sweeping and glissando. It
interfaces with their Voicebox speech

Continued overleaf. . .

Several years ago, the major manufac-
turers of synthesizers accomplished
something that up to now has eluded
the manufacturers of personal com-
puters on this continent — they
developed a complete communications
standard. Any synthesizer equipped
with this Musical Instrument Digital In-
terface (MIDI) could exchange musical
data with any other MIDI synthesizer,
and act upon it. You can now buy a
Yamaha synthesizer, connect it to your
Roland keyboard with two cables, and
whatever you play on the Yamaha will
be duplicated exactly on the Roland. If
you also had a personal computer with
MIDI compatibility, you could store the
musical data produced by the syn-
thesizers in the computer's memory,
edit it, and send it back out again to be
played. Each synthesizer could be com-
manded to play something entirely dif-
ferent from the others.

Dedicated MIDI computers are often
called digital recorders, but these
should not be confused with the 100
thousand dollar digital tape decks us-
ed by recording studios. The latter
digitize the actual sound as it is picked
up by the microphones, recording it on-
to magnetic tape. MIDI takes each
'event' produced by playing a syn-
thesizer (such as: a key's pitch; when
it is pressed; when it is released; how

What is MIDI?

by Tim Grantham

hard it is pressed), then describes it
with a particular 8-bit number. These
numbers are sent to the sound genera-
tion CPU in the synthesizer, which
decodes them to produce the required
sound.

This procedure is very similar to the
way one sends control characters to a
printer to command it to change fonts
or pitch, or to underline. In the same
way as two different printers can have
different device numbers, each MIDI
device on the chain can be specified
with an address. Although all of the
devices receive the data, only the device
addressed will act on the information.

One example of a MIDI interface is
Passport Designs' unit for the Com-
modore 64. This looks like a game car-
tridge with three leads coming out of
it, marked 'MIDI in', 'MIDI out' and
'DRUM sync'. It plugs into the expan-
sion port like a game. Cables run from
the interface to the 'MIDI in' and 'MIDI
out' on the first synthesizer. Additional
synthesizers are connected via a cable
running from the 'MIDI thru' socket on
the first synthesizer to the 'MIDI in'
socket on the next synthesizer; and so
on, down the line. It's very reminiscent
of the way disk drives and printers are
connected to the C-64 and, in fact,
MIDI is a serial interface, like the serial
bus on the C-64. The 'DRUM sync' lead

enables the computer to trigger a non-
MIDI drum machine at a controllable
rate.

The matching software, MIDI/4,
emulates a 4-track sequencer with
editing functions. To enter music into
the C-64's memory, all you do is set the
track to which you wish to record, and
start playing on the master keyboard,
which is always the first MIDI device
connected to the computer. All the
musical information (pitch, key veloci-
ty, start of note, end of note, after-
touch, portamento, et cetera) is sent to
the computer as you play. Even if you
switch to a different pre-set (sound or
timbre), this will be duly sent and
stored. Once the track is recorded, you
can use the editor to overdub, loop
tracks, punch in different bars,
transpose, alter tempos and, finally,
store your work to disk.

When you play back, you can assign
each track to a different MIDI device,
all synchronized to the drum machine
you have connected to the 'DRUM
sync' output. You can still play the syn-
thesizers yourself during playback; the
computer does not lock out the key-
boards. With additional software, you
can print out your compositions in com-
plete musical notation on a compatible
dot-matrix printer. It's a professional
composer's dream! □

November 1985 13

synthesizer to provide a musical accom-
paniment to lyrics sung by the outboard
unit.

Most of the public domain music you
see on CompuServe and other BBSs has
been produced with Master Composer
($59.95), a music editor produced by Ac-
cess. This is because music written with
this program is easily transportable. The
playing program is saved with the music
file and, once it has been loaded into the
computer, only a SYS 30120 is required
to start it playing.

The MueiCalc series ($119.00, com-
plete with ColorTone keyboard) from
Waveform is a synthesizer/sequencer
combination that adds the unique ability
to link two or more C-64s together, and
synchronize them to form a computer or-
chestra. The package provides extensive
sequencer files, pre-sets, editing and prin-
ting facilities, as well as excellent
documentation.

The KawaBaki Synthesizer ($42.95)
from Sight & Sound is also a syn-
thesizer/sequencer combination. This pro-
gram and the Kawasaki Rhythm Rocker
were developed by Ryo Kawasaki, a jazz
musician with over a dozen albums to his
credit. Sight & Sound have developed a
line of eleven software products, all com-
patible with each other. They all use the
keyboard to input the notes, but this is
facilitated with the addition of the In-
credible Musical Keyboard.

The Kawasaki Rhythm Rocker
($42.95) lets you lay down electro-pop
sounds over a pre-programmed bass line,
and combine it with dynamic hi-res
abstract graphics. (You can also compose
your own bass lines.) Tune Trivia
($39.95) is a 'Name That Tune' type of
game to which you can add your own
songs. Music Video Kit ($49.95 US) lets
you create your own animated graphics
and synchronize them to songs available
on the Computer Song Albums. These are
variously titled On Stage, Solid Gold,
Rock Concert, and Music Video Hits
($27.95 each).

For steam-boat captains

The programs in this category might best
be described as music programming
languages. A trade-off is made, sacrific-
ing the more intuitive approach of the
other two categories for greater flexibili-
ty and power.

A fine example is Nick Sullivan's Music
Assembler 64 - TPUG's first 'freeware'
offering. Here, all the musical re-
quirements are entered in just like a
BASIC program. .FOR and .GOSUB are
very similar to their BASIC counterparts,

and enable you to loop sections of the
music. One unique feature is the ability
to subdivide notes into unusual fractions:
13 notes per beat, for example. After the
music program has been written, it is
.assembled into playable object code that
can be transported into other programs
on an interrupt-driven basis.

The Music Processor ($42.95) is a
Sight & Sound product that also uses a
BASIC-like language to provide very
complete control over the SID. It includes
a real-time playing mode. It can be used
to compose and arrange your own songs
for the Music Video Kit mentioned
previously.

Likewise, Allegro ($39.95 US) from
Artworx Software uses a language call-
ed 'Forte' to harness the power of the
SID. The music files compiled from the
Forte source can also be used as
background music for other programs.

T%e MusicMate keyboardfrom Sequential
Circuits sells at $99.00. It is compatible
with that company's MusicMate software.

Synthy C-64 ($14.95) by King
Microware, Note Pro I, Note Pro II

($57.95 and $34.95 respectively) and Note
Pro Bridge ($34.95) from Electronic Lab
Industries are also music programming
languages.

Outboard equipment

All of the keyboards described below
come bundled with software of varying
degrees of sophistication. Because you
can't get this software separately from
the keyboard, I'm describing them here,
rather than in the previous sections.

The Incredible Musical Keyboard
($49.95) from Sight & Sound is an overlay
that fits over the keys on the Commodore
C-64. Consequently, it's more awkward
to use than a full-size keyboard, but cer-
tainly easier than trying to play the
C-64's typewriter keyboard without it.

The software included can take a novice
on a tour of the SID, or introduce a musi-
cian to computer-controlled music. It also
comes with comprehensive demos of the
complete line of Sight & Sound software.

The MusicMate keyboard ($99.00)
from Sequential Circuits plugs into the
joystick #1 port on the C-64. The keys
cover a 2 1/2 octave range, and can be us-
ed for input by all of the Sequential Cir-
cuits MusicMate software. A simple song
recorder with eight pre-set instruments
is included.

The ColorTone Keyboard ($69.95) by
Waveform is a membrane-style keyboard
that also plugs into joystick #1. It has a
25-note chromatic range. A unique
feature of this keyboard is the 'Touch
Harp', a multi-coloured strip above the
keys. You can slide your finger anywhere
along this strip to alter the pitch of the
note. The accompanying software has an
automatic correction feature that locks
out wrong notes as you play along with
the pre-recorded melodies. The keyboard
can also be used with MusiCalc 1.

The Music Port ($149.95 US) keyboard
by Tech Sketch is a 32-key unit that plugs
into the user port of the C-64. The accom-
panying software is very powerful, with
complete editing and scoring capabilities,
as well as the ability to use modulation
when creating your own timbres and
sound effects. All the options can be
selected directly from the Music Port
keyboard.

The Melodian keyboard ($199.95) is a
40-key unit that comes complete with the
ConcertMaster composing and syn-
thesizer software. The program features
a scrolling score and pre-set voices that
you can alter. The keyboard has two
plugs, one connecting to the user port and
the other going into joystick #2. The Con-
certMaster software can be used without
the Melodian keyboard.

Passport Designs' Soundchaser C-64
Keyboard ($199.00) is the largest
keyboard currently available, with 49
keys. It comes with composing and syn-
thesizer software included.

Finally, there is the Covox Voice
Master ($139.95). I include this product
because of its unique 'Voice Harp'
feature. The unit consists of a microphone
and headphone combination that connects
to the joystick #1 port. The accompany-
ing Composer program lets you hum a
song into the microphone, and transcribes
what you hum into musical notation. You
can compose without having any
knowledge of music.

Once you've dipped a toe into the sea
of music products available, we hope
you'll have a whale of a time. □

14 TPUG Magazine

Announcing a New and Practical Application

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What can be done with
ComputerEyes

• Make Custom T-SHIRTS, Scarfs, etc.

• Computer art

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• Pattern Recognition

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• Literally hundreds of practical
applications

• Capture real-world images

• Plugs into the Game I/O port

• Save "pictures" to disk

• Print out all images with such
packages as; PRINT SHOP, DOODLE,
NEWSROOM, KOALA, etc.

• One year parts and labor warranty

• High Quality B/W video camera also
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• Full software support

• Join "free" public domain ART
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• ComputerEyes interfaces easily to
any source of standard NTSC or
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Video Cameras

Videodisks

TV Receivers with video outputs

Other computers

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_ C 64 ComputerEyes $109.00

_ Doodle Compatible Software 11.00

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Commodore 128: New Things

by Jim Butterfield

Copyright ° 1985 Jim Butterfield. Permis-
sion to reprint is hereby granted, pro-
vided this notice is included in the
reprinted material.

The new Commodore 128 has a side that
is virtually identical to the earlier Com-
modore 64, and a second side that is ex-
panded with new features. BASIC is
generally upward -compatible in the new
side, dubbed 'C-128' mode. The machine's
new interfaces increase its overall
usefulness, of course. An area that was
of particular interest to me was its com-
patibility on the machine language level,
and that's what I'll talk about here.

I have a book in print — Machine
Language for the Commodore 6b and
other Commodore Computers — that tries
to cover the whole Commodore product
range. Most of the exercises will run on
almost any Commodore computer —
PET, CBM, VIC 20, Commodore 64,
Plus/4 or Commodore 16. My objective
here was to teach transportable program-
ming skills, so that a reader could move,
say, from VIC to 64 without needing to
scrap much of what had been learned.

This generality led to some limitations.
I couldn't deal with graphics or sound in
any detail, since each machine has quite
different mechanisms for achieving these
effects. And I had to use care in choos-
ing the area of memory that would be
used to stage student exercises: ad-
dresses from 828 decimal and up were
free on all machines.

The B-128 created special problems.
The existence of a memory banking struc-
ture, the curious bank-selection mech-
anisms, the completely different memory
maps, the non-extensible machine
language monitor, and the need for
special 'transfer sequences' — all of these
took the B-128 out of the mainstream of
Commodore machines. Spending too
much time on special considerations for
this 'orphan' machine would clutter the
book, yet I didn't want to leave it com-
pletely out. The B-128 ended up largely
as supplementary material in the
appendices, with extra material on the
di sk-that-can -be -bought -with -the-book .
And there was a mild suggestion that a
beginner would find the B-128 a more dif-
ficult machine with which to learn.

Now comes the Commodore 128. Will

it be a mainstream machine, so that the
book immediately applies to it? Or will it
be another offbeat machine like the
B-128?

The answer is: a little of both. There
will need to be a revision of the book —
it should be ready in early 1986 — to ac-
commodate changes that are largely
trivial but might confuse a beginner.

It would be easy to 'cop out' and sug-
gest that exercises should be done on the
C-64 side: these will certainly run without
problems. But, heck, the C-128 side is too
good. It's got a dandy built-in machine
language monitor, and lots more 'playing

eyes.

Ranges for memory displays and dis-
assemblies can be given in three ways:
with two addresses, to display between
two locations; with one address, to
display a number of bytes starting at any
location; or with no address, to continue
from a previously displayed address. No
scrolling, but you'll find that typing a
single character and RETURN is easy go-
ing. Oh, and memory displays also show
the values as ASCII characters.

The new monitor is convenient, so
much so that I've written a parallel one
for the Commodore 64. It's in the TPUG

around' room in memory. It has some
limitations, too; for example, it's hard to
put programs in high memory.

Let's talk about the major difference
areas.

The monitor

The built-in monitor is good stuff. Say
MONITOR and you'll be there. Most of
the new features are convenient for
beginners. Want to know what the
decimal value of hex C3B is? Just type
$C3B and press RETURN. Or, to change
1000 decimal to hex (or binary, for that
matter) just type +1000. Sure, old hands
know how to do the conversion on a
calculator, but it's nice to have it right
there. For that matter, you can use odd
number systems such as decimal or
binary at any time, in any command. If
you're doing an assembly and want to
load the X register with a value of 40
decimal, all you need to type is A 0B00
LDX + 40. No need to remember that 40
is hex 28; it will change in front of your

library as Supermon + 64, and there's
also a version for VIC 20. My biggest ob-
jective, again, is compatibility. Users
switching between C-64 and C-128 sides
shouldn't need to remember which for-
mats are needed by which monitor.

The work area

The common work area in earlier com-
puters - from $033C to about $03F0 -
is not available for C-128 mode. In fact,
it's a sensitive area and you'll crash if you
use it. (Sigh). It's easy to grump about
this, but the area below $0400 (decimal
1024) is at a premium because it's the
only part of memory that is never bank
switched.

Put your practice programs in the new
cassette buffer area ($OBO0 to $0BFF).

When you're ready to attach your
machine language programs behind your
BASIC program (this comes up around
Chapter Six), you'll find there are less pit-
falls since variables are not stored behind
BASIC any more (they're in a different

16 TPUG Magazine

bank). There is a new pointer called End-
of-Basic at addresses $1210/$1211, and
you'll need to adjust that one. After that,
BASIC and ML programs will save and
load as a single unit.

Don't try to put a machine language
program anywhere above $4000
(+16384) unless you're quite familiar
with the architecture. And before giving
a SYS to your machine language pro-
gram, it's wise to command BANK 15.

Variables

Chapter Six suggests that it's often con-
venient to get the value of a BASIC
variable by reading it directly from its
location in memory. This turns out to be
a new challenge on the C-128, since the
variables are in a different memory bank
from the program you are writing.

There's too much detail to give here,
but here's the core of it. Read memory
in another bank by the following se-
quence: Set up an indirect address
somewhere in zero page, pointing at the
address you want to read, with Y contain-
ing the appropriate offset; load the ad-
dress of this indirect address into the A
register; load the bank number into the
X register; and call JSR SFF74. Upon
return, A will contain the value. Store to

another bank as follows: Set up an in-
direct address somewhere in zero page,
pointing at the address to which you want
to write, with Y containing the approp
riate offset; put the address of this in-
direct address in location $02B9; load the
bank number into the X register; and call
JSR SFF77. Upon return, the contents of
A will have been stored to the appropriate
location.

Whew! That's quite a job, and I gave
some thought to dropping the correspon-
ding exercise from Chapter Six rather
than calling for the reader to sweat
through it. It finally went in — as part
of an appendix — the material is too
useful to leave out.

Other

Don't let me scare you. Most of the things
that you know from machine language on
other machines still apply. You GET with
$FFE4, you OUTPUT with $FFD2, and
you'll find yourself in a familiar environ-
ment. BASIC starts at quite a high loca-
tion — S1C01 or decimal 7169 — but
there's lots of memory available, so there
shouldn't be any problem.

The 80-co!umn screen is mapped quite
differently to memory, but that shouldn't
worry the average ML user — $FFD2

sends to it if it has been selected. There
are special characters that you can print
to do things like screen windowing or
scrolling — these work just as well in
'machine language as in BASIC.

It's a nice machine, and a new
challenge. You'll enjoy it. □

Important message to

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November 1985 17

Wireless Computing: Part II

by A. Vic Forde

Last month's article explained how
amateur radio operators communicate
with one another, and how they can also
use their radios and the computer to com-
municate in a special way. Not only are
they able to transmit and receive infor-
mation among themselves, but they are
also able to copy teletype transmission
from the major news services of the
world. This latter aspect is also available
to you and your computer if you can ob-
tain a good general coverage (short wave)
receiver and purchase a special modem.

The two modes of reception that would
be of the most interest to you are Morse
Code (CW) transmission and teletype
(RTTY). Teletype is the method by which
the newspapers receive news from the so-
called 'wire services'. The news story is
automatically printed by means of a
typewriter onto continuous or fanfold
paper. It can also be printed directly to
a screen monitor.

As mentioned, to receive these, you will
need a good general-coverage receiver
and an interface modem attached to your
present computer system (remember, this
is not the same type of modem as your
BBS modem). The radio receiver compo-
nent must also include an antenna
system, although (as will be seen a little
later) this need not be too sophisticated
if it is only being used for reception.

The radio must be capable of covering
the radio spectrum from 1.800 to 30
Megahertz (MHz). This range of radio fre-
quencies does not need to be continuous
on the radio's dial, but can be broken up
into a number of sections called 'bands'.
Most of us are familiar with AM and FM:
however, there are three other types of
transmissions in communications, and
these are called CW, USB (upper side
band), and LSB (lower side band). It is
necessary to use a radio that has all three
of these communication modes available,
if you want to copy CW and RTTY.

Another important quality that a good
receiver must have is the ability to
discriminate between two stations
transmitting on adjacent frequencies.
There are a number of good receivers
available, for a minimum price of about
150 to 250 dollars. The price range for a
good general -coverage receiver can be as

18 TPUG Magazine

high as several thousand dollars.

Although the higher cost radios are
more sophisticated, the cheaper radios
will work well receiving either CW or
RTTY. Higher-priced radios will not
necessarily provide you with a stronger
signal . The secret of receiving a strong
signal is having a good antenna system,
along with an excellent grounding
system.

The antenna itself can be a simple long
wire about 100 feet long (or longer). It
should be as high above ground as possi-
ble. A desirable height would be about 40
to 50 feet. However, many long wire
antennae receive signals reasonably well
at heights as low as 20 feet. The antenna
wire does not have to be strung in a
straight line, nor does it have to be
perfectly horizontal with the ground. It
can be insulated, or just a bare wire.

The antenna really consists of two
parts: the elevated long wire, and agood
grounding system. The ground for the
antenna is more important when you are
connecting the computer to the radio, so
that the computer and the radio will be
at the same ground potential. The best
type of grounding is an 8 or 10 foot metal
bar driven into soil that is always
somewhat damp. In many cases, water
pipes in the home provide a reasonably
good grounding system.

Now we come to the little 'black box'
that magically translates the CW or
RTTY into meaningful letters and
numbers on the screen — the interface
modem. Audio sounds from the receiver
are translated into a digital form that
makes sense to computers.

Interface modems are available for
most popular computers. These modems
are often advertised in radio magazines
such as QST Magazine, 73 Magazine and

CQ Magazine. They are made to be com-
patible with specific computers, although
some of the more expensive ones used for
both receiving and transmitting are adap-
table to several different computers.

Interfaces that receive only are much
cheaper than the transmit-receive type.
For instance, the MFJ-1224 transmit-
receive modem lists at $99.95 US,
whereas the MFJ-1225, which allows you
to receive RTTY and CW, but not
transmit, costs $69.95 US. Both of these
can be obtained from: MFJ Enterprises
Inc., Box 494, Mississippi State,
Mississippi 39762. The Kantronics Com-
pany have several interfaces. Two of
them are actually called The Interface
and Inter face-2. These units cost about
275 dollars for the transmit-receive type.
I don't know the price of the receive-only
type — it is probably about 125 dollars
US. Their address is: Kantronics, 1202 E.
23rd Street, Lawrence, Kansas 66044.
Kantronics also has one of the better soft-
ware programs — Hamtext — which
comes on disk and cartridge. Another
company that sells interfaces is: HAL
Communications Corp., Box 365, Urbana,
Illinois 61801.

As with any modem interface, you will
also require accompanying software so
that the computer can translate them into
letters and numbers, and print on your
monitor screen or printer. The programs
can be purchased from the company sup-
plying the modem. They are very
sophisticated programs that provide you
with a number of options. I will not go
into the details of making the connection
between the radio and the computer,
because the interface comes with the
necessary connections and cable. You
should not have any trouble following the
instructions.

Frequency (MHz)

Wire Service

6.87

TASS (Moscow)

6.984

Associated Press (London)

10.649

Associated Press (London)

10.959

Reuters (London)

12.085

TASS (Moscow)

13.62

USA National Weather Service

13,51

METOC (Canadian Maritime Weather)

13.89

ADN (East Germany)

14.900

TASS (Moscow)

14.974

Associated Press (London!

Once you have the equipment con-
nected and turned on, turn the dial of the
radio untU you either hear the CW (morse
code) or the RTTY (teletype). To copy the
CW to the screen or printer, you simply
adjust the radio signal until you see print
appear on the screen. The same applies
to the RTTY signal. It should be pointed
out that the C W and RTTY are each quite
distinctive. The CW is a series of short
and long 1000 cycle notes, whereas the
RTTY signal is two distinct tones of
about the same length.

The list in the box on the page opposite
is just a small sample of the frequencies
and the services transmitting on a regular
basis. Remember, there is a time dif-
ference between countries, so you will
have to pick a time of day to listen when
the stations are transmitting. Further-
more, radio propagation is dependent on
the number of sunspots on the sun, so
there will be a variation from day to day
and season to season in the type of recep-
tion you will be able to obtain.

This is just a short list of wire service
stations available. In the future, if enough
interest is shown by TPUG members, a
larger, more comprehensive list could be
made available. □

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The Wright Alignment

by George K. Culbertson

1 read with interest Ian Wright's '1541 Problems and How to Solve Them' in
the January 1985 edition of TPUG Magazine. My problem was that some pro-
gram disk copies made on a 4040 disk drive produced some errors when loaded
from my 4040. At first, I worried that my 5-year-old 2040 drive, which had long
ago been upgraded to 4040 format, might be out of alignment.

Then I came across Mr. Wright's article. I rearranged it slightly to accom-
modate the two drives in my 4040 (see listing).

At first, I would regularly get '29 DISK ID MISMATCH'. Then I discovered
that if I catalogued a disk, there would then be no errors when the Disk Track
Test program was run. It appears that it is necessary to initialize the drive each
time a new disk is inserted (although for normal loading and saving the DOS

2 in the 4040 takes care of this). Fortunately, I made this discovery before spen-
ding $150 for the CBM 4040 Disk Service Manual and the two alignment disks!

Since the DEMO/TEST disk that came with my 2040 is in a different format
than the 4040, when I try to test it I get '22 READ ERROR'. So, for my test
disk I have to use a TPUG library disk. I hope that they are recorded with a
carefully aligned 4040! (The alignment ofTPUG's disk drives is checked regularly,
hut should not be used as a standard if something specifically designed for the
task is available. -Ed.) □

10 rem***disk tracking test***

1£ rem modified -for 4040 disk drive by george c

ulbertson, Spanish fork, utah
14 rem -from article '1541 problems and how to s

olve them' by ian a. wright
16 rem in tpug magazine, jan 1335, pages 8-9
£0 pr int "<clr >load this program, and then inser

t into the drive selected, the";
30 print" commodore 4040 test demo disk.
40 print"<ue assume that the tracking is correc

t on th is d isK ! )
50 pr int : input "enter drive # to be tested";d:

open 15 ,8, 15:rem open error channel
60 ifd=lthen80

70 pr intttlS, " i0" :goto 100:rem init drive
80 pr int#15,"il" :rem or drive 1
100 open8, 8 ,8, "tt" irem open random file channel
120 lt$=str*<lt ):rem set string value
130 pr int#15,"ul: ";8;d;lt;0:rem block-read a £5

6 byte blocK
140 t*=lt*:gosub500:rem check status
150 pr intttl5,"ul : H ;8;d;f t ;0; rem read track 1
160 t*=-ft*:gosub500Jrem checK status
170 lt=lt-l : if lt>lthenl£0:rem deer last track
180 closeSsclose 15 : end '-rem close files and quit
500 print "reading track: ";t$:rem screen prompt

<space>of track being read
510 inputtti5,nu ,me*,tr ,se:rem get error msgs
5£0 pr inttab< l£)nulme*;tr ;sesrem print errors
530 ifnu<£thenreturn irem status oK?-yes-go on
540 pr int sprint "drive failure !!" :close8sclose 15
irem oops ... that's a boo boo

November 1985 19

The CI Protocol: Part Two

by Steve Punter

Varying block size

The reason that block size was included
in the header was originally to allow only
the last block to vary in size (one can
never guarantee that the amount of data
to be sent will divide nicely into a preset
block size). It quickly dawned on me that
'CI' was set up in such a way that any
block size could be used for any block in
the transmission.

Varying block size has its advantages.
Under reasonably clean line conditions,
large blocks transmit the most data with
the least handshaking (which is mildly
time consuming). Smaller blocks are
superior under bad noise conditions, since
smaller blocks run a higher chance of
making it through the noise unscathed.
Should the block still fail to make it, less
time is required to repeat a smaller block.

My current implementation of 'CI'
allows the user to pick a fixed block size
between 40 and 255 bytes, but in other
implementations, there is no reason why
block size couldn't be varied during
transmission to adapt to changing line
conditions.

One final thing concerning block struc-
ture: how would one presume to know the
size of the first block, if that is revealed
only in the block that came before it (quite
a paradox)? 'Cl' requires that the first
block contain only a header, which would
make that block 7 bytes long. This header
would do little more than supply the
receiving computer with the size of the
first real block. Accuracy of this first
'dummy' block is guaranteed, since it
must still pass the checksum tests. You
must make the block number for this
dummy block '0'.

Now that you understand block struc-
ture, handshaking methods and code
word vocabulary, it comes time to find
out how this all comes together.

Communication syntax

Most procotols have very simple hand-
shaking between blocks, which is easy to
trip up, given sufficiently noisy condi-
tions. Usually, the transmitting computer
sends the block, then waits for a response
from the receiving computer: either
'good' or 'bad'. The transmitting com-
puter then proceeds to send the next

block {if 'good') or resend the last block
(if 'bad'). This system falls apart the mo-
ment the transmitting computer receives
a false indication of 'good' or 'bad', and
goes on to transmit the wrong block.
Should things get out of sync, and the
transmitting computer send the next
block when it should have sent the last
one again, XMODEM attempts to make
corrections by use of the block number
encoded within each block.

'Cl' does nothing so crude; its very
communication syntax guarantees that
neither computer will get out of phase.
Whereas XMODEM uses a single state-
ment monologue between each block, 'Cl'
uses a multiple-part dialogue. This makes
'Cl' about three per cent slower than
XMODEM, but this small trade-off in
speed for accuracy will be well worth it,
the first time you run into trouble with
XMODEM.

XMODEM communications would look
something like this:

Transmitter: Transmits block

Receiver: 'Good'

Transmitter: Transmits next block

Receiver: 'Bad'

Transmitter: Transmits same block

again

In 'Cl', the transmission would look
something like this:

Transmitter: Transmits block

Receiver: 'Good'

Transmitter: Good block acknowledged

Receiver: Send next block for me

Transmitter: Transmits next block

Receiver: 'Bad'

Transmitter: Bad block acknowledged

Receiver: Send that block again

Transmitter: Transmits same block

again

In this type of transmission dialogue,
neither computer can get out of sync.
Should either computer receive the op-
posite response to that it expects, it will
go back to give the correct code word for
the response it did receive, thus regain-
ing proper synchronization. Couple this
with the 'Statement and Listen Loops',
and you can readily see that communica-
tion is unlikely to break down.

The syntax

Here is a more formal version of the 'Cl'
dialogue given above. For a good block,
it goes like this:

Transmitter: (Block)
Receiver: GOO
Transmitter: ACK
Receiver: S/B

Transmitter: (Next block)

The dialogue for a bad block is identical
except for the receiving computer's first
response:

Transmitter: (Block)
Receiver: BAD
Transmitter: ACK
Receiver: S/B

Transmitter: (Next block)

Immediately after receiving the block, the
receiving computer recalculates the
checksum to determine the validity of the
data. In the meantime, the transmitting
computer starts to wait for a 'GOO' or
'BAD' signal. Since it can 'say' nothing
until it receives one of these codes, it
merely waits. That may sound suspicious-
ly like a good place to 'hang up' the proto-
col, but the receiving end is eventually
going to finish receiving the block, either
because it timed out waiting, or it finished
collecting the correct number of bytes
from the transmitting computer.

At that time, the receiving computer
sends the appropriate code word ('GOO'
or 'BAD') and begins to wait for an
acknowledgement ('ACK'). If it doesn't
receive the 'ACK' in about one half-
second, it sends the 'GOO' or 'BAD' code
word once again. Meanwhile, the trans-
mitting computer has been patiently
awaiting the reception of the 'GOO' or
'BAD' code. On receiving one of these
codes, it transmits an 'ACK' and starts
to wait for a 'send block' signal ('S/B').
If it doesn't get the 'S/B' within about one
half-second, it sends 'ACK' again.

The receiving computer waits for this
'ACK' signal. When it receives the signal,
it sends the 'S/B' signal and begins to
wait for the block. Should it receive an
'ACK' while waiting for the block, or
receive nothing at all for approximately
five seconds, it assumes that the trans-
mitting computer hasn't heard the 'S/B'
and transmits it again. In the meantime,
the transmitting computer is waiting for
the 'S/B' and, upon reception, starts sen-
ding the block. The process has now-
started all over again.

A quick analysis of this system will
reveal that it's darned near impossible to
get any type of noise that could possibly

20 TPUG Magazine

mimic the code sequences required. Also,
no noise could stop the eventual comple-
tion of the above sequence, since each
computer is always 'sending and waiting 1 .
If two people keep repeating their
sentences over and over, while continu-
ing to listen to the other person, even a
noisy room couldn't stop them from hear-
ing one another eventually.

Of course, some line noise is just so hor-
rendous that even this method of com-
munication could fail. Then again, this
type of noise would make it almost im-
possible for the user to be online in the
first place, so it can be considered an
unlikely event.

Should one of the computers go offline
for any reason, however, we wouldn't
want the other computer to keep looping
and looping until it died of old age.
Although I haven't built such protection
into the terminal program I distribute in
the public domain, my BBS program does
have abortion code. Should the protocol
on the BBS have to go through the 'State-
ment and Listen Loop' more than twelve
times in row (which is highly unlikely, if
the other computer is still online), it will
abort the transfer. Similar code could be
used in your implementation.

The 'End-Off situation

When the final block is transmitted, the
high order part of the block number
should be made HEX FF (255 decimal).
This will inform the receiving computer
that this is the last block of data, and to
expect no more. The question now arises:
how can both computers be one hundred
per cent sure that the other is fully aware
of the file completion? A fair question, but
not one with a simple answer.

When the transmitting computer
receives the 'GOO' for the last block, it
can be fairly certain that the receiving
computer has received the final block, but
it must inform the receiving computer
that it knows this. It does so by sending
an ' ACK', but cannot be sure the receiv-
ing computer has received the 'ACK'
unless it gets the 'SIB' signal back. Now
the transmitting computer must
acknowledge the reception of the 'S/B',
but under the normal communications
syntax, it would now have to send a block.

This is where the 'End-Off syntax
comes into play. After receiving the 'S/B',
the transmitting computer sends back a
'SYN' signal. In response to that, the
receiving computer sends its own 'S/B'
signal, then waits for the final 'S/B' from
the transmitting computer. Since it will
not be responding to this code, it simply
goes into a wait cycle for approximately
five seconds. If it does get the 'S/B'

within that five seconds, it ends im-
mediately, but otherwise doesn't really
care if it receives the code or not since,
at this stage, there is a one hundred per
cent assurance of both computers know-
ing things are okay.

The transmitting computer need only
send three copies of the 'S/B' code at this
point since, as stated above, there is full
assurance that both computers are finish-
ed. Note that the code words chosen for
the End-Off situation are not necessari-
ly related to their apparent function.

Transferring file type

When transferring files from one com-
puter to another, it is often necessary also
to transfer the file type, but this must be
known before the file is opened and,
therefore, before the protocol begins. 'CI'
does not impose any strict rules on what
sort of information you transfer about the
files (if any), but when writing a terminal
program to communicate with one of my
bulletin boards, the following should be
done:

Using a full implementation of the 'CI'
procotol (first dummy block, data block
and End-Off), transmit a single byte of
data corresponding to the following file
types:

1 Program file

2 SEQfile

3 WordPro file

Transmitting this single piece of data
would require that two blocks be sent; the
initial dummy block to set up the size of
the first data block (of which there will
be only one, size 8); and the data block
itself, consisting of 7 header bytes and the
single file type byte.

For other applications, one could con-
ceivably transfer much more information,
including file name, file type, computer
type, et cetera. It could even be possible
to transfer multiple files, specifying the
number and name of each file in this first
transmission. Alternatively, no one said
you have to use this first separate
transmission; if no information other the
file needs to be transmitted, you just send
the file, and nothing more.

Public domain source code

Also available in the public domain is a
copy of the Source Code used to assem-
ble TERM.C1 V2, the machine language
portion of my public domain 'CI' terminal
program for the C-64. You may use it
simply to study my method of coding 'CI',
or you may use it directly in any projects
of your own. It is quite well-documented
and, coupled with this article, should give
you a fairly complete overview of the 'CI'
protocol. □

Marketplace

COMPUTER RENTALS

We buy, trade, sell and repair Com-
modore computers.

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Box of 10 disks

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4040 or 8050 Drive

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MSD Dual Drive

$799.00

Wordpro 4+ for CBM

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• Database Manager for C BM $1 50.00

COMPUTER RENTALS

250 Consumers Rd., Suite 101
: Willowdale, Ontario M2J 4V6
Tel: (416) 495-0035

C-64 TOP TWENTY

Last year TPUG Magazine ran a
C-64 chess championship at the
World of Commodore show. This
year, we're planning on a battle of
the bands. If you have a really good
C-64 music file (public domain only)
that you think deserves a place on
the C-64 TOP 20, give our office a
call (445-9865) before December 5,
or come around to our booth on
December 5, the first day of the
show, and we'll try to include it in the
contest.

Only stand-alone music files are eligi-
ble — something we can load and
run without additional software. They
should also be reasonably short —
no more than four minutes, say.
Graphics displays accompanying
the music will not be considered in
the judging — only the music counts.
The judges of the contest will be the
people who come by our booth at
the WOC III show. We'll play off the
music files against each other in
pairs, and ask bystanders to choose
between them. The results will be
tabulated and released in the
January magazine, and we'll also
make available a disk containing the
winning entries.

We have some entries already. If the
volume of entries is too great, we
may have to stop accepting new
ones at some point, so get yours in
now. This is an informal contest, with
no prizes, except the glory if you pro-
grammed the music.

See you at the show.

November 1985 21

COMAL

REFERENCE GUIDE

Sixty-four pages outlining all the C64 COMAL
keywords, with sections on the language's superb
String Handling, Procedures and Parameters,
Expressions and Standard Functions. $9.95

: COMAL

Reference Guhkr

IPPP

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by Borge R. Christensen

With o loiewad bf Jm Oirtipffl&ld

Send cheque or money order to:
TPUG Inc., Dept. A., 1912 Avenue Rd., Ste. 1 ,
Toronto, Canada M5M 4A1

Ask Someone Who Knows

If you enjoy Jim Strasma's many books, and his
articles in this and other magazines, you'll be glad
he also edits his own highly-acclaimed computer
magazine, now in its sixth year of continuous
publication. Written just for owners of Com-
modore's many computers, each Midnite Software
Gazette contains hundreds of brief, honest
reviews.

Midnite also features timely Commodore'
news, hints and articles, all organized for instant
reference, and never a wasted word. Whether you
are just beginning or a long-time hobbyist, each
issue will help you and your computer to work
together effectively.

A six issue annual subscription is $23. To
subscribe, or request a sample issue, just write:

MIDNITE SOFTWARE GAZETTE

P.O. Box 1747

Champaign, IL 61820

You'll be glad you did!

&&*

is FREE

Keeping you up-to-date on where
to buy, where to get service or
assistance, corning events, who's
doing what with computers in
town and more.

Over 90,000 free copies of the
paper distributed monthly in
Toronto and area.

Pick yours up at a local computer
store, club or training centre.

Or take out a subscription and
we'll send it right to your home or
business.

Subscriptions SI 1. Back Issues No. 1-
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Please sign me up as a subscriber. I enclose S11 for 12 Issues.

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□ I enclose SI for each of the following back Issues . . .

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Telephone: (416) 698-3152

Cheque or money order payable to "Context Publishing",

or Visa account number and expiry date

WOC III Exhibitors

by Liz Murray

In addition to the Commodore booth with C-128s, PClOs, PC20s
and the Amiga available to visitors for hands-on trial, this year
the World of Commodore has attracted over 60 exhibitors from
Canada, the US and Great Britain. Such Commodore-authorized
dealers as Computer Odyssey, Desktop Computer, Electronics
2001, Norland Agencies, Micropace Computers, Phase 4
distributors and Share Data International will bring an incredibly
wide array of the latest in software and peripherals.

The following is a brief outline of some of the manufacturers
represented at the four-day show, and some of the products that
will be featured at their booths. Because of our deadline for the
November issue, we are unable to include those that registered
after mid-October.

Timeworks, of Deerfield, Illinois, which distributes software
in Canada through Multi Micro in Quebec and Aviva Software
in Ontario, will have such new products as Sylvia Porter's Per-
sonal Financial Planner, Swiftcalc with Sideways, Sideways,
Word Writer 128, Data Manager 128 and Swiftcalc 128.

Digital Solutions of Willowdale makes "serious software
that's simple to use", and to prove it they will have their Paper-
back line well displayed. Frank Winter, a name and face that
might be well known to some of you as the former Education
Manager for Commodore Canada, will be at the Digital Solu-
tions booth.

Computer Specialties, a major manufacturer of microcom-
puter peripherals and specialty products, will be up from Florida
with products designed especially for Commodore IEEE com-
puters, the C-64 and the C-128.

Microphys Programs, whose products are employed in the
educational environment in the US, has redesigned their pro-
grams for those who wish to improve their academic skills by
working with their personal computers at home. They have
developed over 40 sets of programs for home use, and they'll
be selling them at WOC III.

The 'Space Pen', from Soniture Inc., is a two-dimensional or
three-dimensional input device for the Commodore 6U and other
computers. In its 2-D mode, it is compatible with existing joystick
and touch tablet software.

The 'Robotics Automat Kit' from Fischertechnik includes an
interface, an industry standard Robotic Control Language based
on Superforth, and parts for ten intelligent robotic configura-
tions. It is available for the Commodore 64 and other computers.

WATCOM Products from Waterloo will be on hand with
many of their textbooks and programs. Such well-known micro
software as the WATCOM Interpreters, WATF1LE and WAT-
COM GML will be featured.

Soniture Inc. will feature their 'Space Pen', shown in the
photograph below. In the 2-D position, it is designed to act like
a touch tablet, and will operate with existing software. As a 3-D
input device, the receiver frame can detect in all three dimen-
sions the coordinates of the transmitter in a six foot field in front
of the computer or frame.

Info Designs has completed its transition from a Commodore-
only software developer to a multiproduct software publisher
and marketer. They have products in both the low-end and high-
end market place and will be at WOC III with their well-known
home and business programs for personal computers.

EMJ Data Systems will be there with a wide array of
TECM AR hardware and software, including their powerful new
peripherals for the Amiga.

Grolier/Mindflight, developers and distributors of educational
software products for the Canadian school market, will be there
with their self -teaching productivity tools for preschoolers, for
elementary and secondary school students, and for beginning
adult users. Grolier has been publishing high-quality learning
materials for 90 years, and remains a leader as it develops soft-
ware that integrates books and encyclopedia with computers. D

November 1985 23

The Amiga at WOC III

by Liz Murray

In 'Adventure Games: Text versus Graphics', in our June/ July
issue, Peter Archer pointed out that the problem with high-
quality graphics is that they consume large amounts of memory.
Peter explains that this situation will eventually change, and
that the next generation of personal computers will have much
more memory than today's machines.

Well, the next generation is already here, and is brought to
you by Commodore . . . with the introduction of the Amiga.

The Amiga has already received plenty of attention, amongst
users and in the press, and it is sure to be among the biggest
attractions at this year's World of Commodore show. For those
of you who are wondering what all the fuss is about, here's a
quick look at the latest and most astounding product in Com-
modore history.

The Amiga is based on the versatile Motorola 68000
microprocessor, bolstered by
three proprietary microchips
designed by Commodore-
Amiga to facilitate sound and
graphics functions. In graphics,
Amiga soars above conven-
tional computers because its
proprietary VLSI graphics
chips liberate the 68000
microprocessor from routine
tasks, and allow the Amiga to
perform sophisticated graphics
functions. It has the largest
standard colour palette avail-
able on a microcomputer to
date, with more than 4,000 col-
ours. Commodore has engin-
eered into the Amiga the
following colour modes: 320 by
200, 32 colours; 320 by 400, 32
colours; 640 by 400, 16 colours;
and a 'hold and modify' mode
that allows 4,096 colours on
screen simultaneously.

Genuine hi-res 'real live
scenes' are now possible with
the Amiga through the combin-
ation of videodisk and personal
computer. The Amiga has three
video ports. Port one allows for
analog RGB output. This port also supports an optional genlock
unit for synchronizing the Amiga with an external video device
such as a laser disk, video camera or video tape player. A sec-
ond video port outputs standard NTSC signals for TV via an
RF modulator. Video port 3 is an NTSC composite video output.

Amiga is also the leader in professional quality audio capabil-
ities, including a built-in music synthesizer. This capability in-
cludes four low-noise digital voices, each with independently pro-
grammable volume, level and sampling rates, which can be con-
figured to provide stereo output. These sound features are also
employed to provide text-to-speech voice synthesis, with

unlimited vocabulary, and user-defined parameters for male and
female voices.

Certainly this combination of graphics and sound capabilities
gives the user a creative edge, and shows that Commodore is
addressing needs in the advertising world, as well as in design,
architecture and music. But the Amiga also addresses the needs
of other professionals and the business user. Again the versatility
and the power of the Motorola 68000 microprocessor gives the
Amiga a muscular multitasking operating system. The Amiga
offers 256K bytes of RAM, user expandable via a plug-in car-
tridge to 512K bytes, and is further externally expandable up
to 8 megabytes. With the inexpensive software option PC
Transformer, the machine can run popular MS-DOS business
and professional programs such as Lotus 1-2-3.

Ease-of-use is a critical ingredient in the success of a personal
computer, and here again the Amiga delivers. It makes it easy
for the user to communicate with the computer using icons, win-
dows, menus and a mouse. More
significantly, because Amiga's
three custom chips free the
microprocessor of audio and
sound functions, all the power
of the 68000 is available to pro-
grammers so that they can build
layer upon layer of commands
and utility into the application
programs themselves.

Most importantly, Amiga
offers the additional feature of
affordability. With its 16/32 bit
68000 main processor and three
special-purpose chips, the A1000
personal computer — as it is of-
ficially known — delivers an un-
precedentedly cost-effective
combination of computer power
and graphics capability via a
multitasking operating system
and a high-speed windowing
user interface. Suggested list
price is $2,000,

The Amiga A 1080 features
80 column by 25 row text
display, built-in speaker, audio
amplifier and miniature jack
socket for headphone use, an
analog RGB input allowing the
display of up to 4,096 colours, and compatibility with video
cassette recorders and television tuners. Suggested list price
is $800.

The A1050 is a 256K byte memory expansion cartridge that
allows you to double the memory to 512K bytes in seconds, and
is easily installed behind a panel on the front of the Amiga.
The A1010 3.5 is an additional external drive that increases data
storage to 880K. It records data using the same format as the in-
ternal drive, creating a powerful interactive feature. Up to three
additional drives can be added to the Amiga system for total
storage capacity of 3.52 megabytes. Suggested list price is $450. □

24 TPUG Magazine

Commodore in 1985

by Liz Murray

Commodore Business Machines Limited
is a company in transition. New top
management at Commodore Inter-
national, guiding the corporation
worldwide, is allowing all national sub-
sidiaries, including Commodore Canada,
to expand in new directions.

This means that Commodore Canada,
while maintaining its traditional
strengths, is aggressively pushing into
new business markets for the first time .

Commodore has been investing signif-
icant revenue, effort and energy in
developing new products. In so doing, it
has looked to consumers for directions —
at their routine challenges in everyday
work, study and home life. The goal was
to develop a product that addressed the
problems that consumers are currently
confronting.

Rather than talking about technology
and power, Commodore is addressing the
needs of users and the results they can
achieve: ways they can facilitate and im-

prove job performance, master a course
of study, and explore their own creativ-
ity as writers, businesspeople, artists,
musicians and designers.

In its extensive research and develop-
ment work, Commodore has been great-
ly aided by its unique philosophy of ver-
tical integration, which allows a company
to control its entire operating processes,
enabling it quickly to adapt to changing
market demands, and to provide more
consistent quality control. Product design
is based on cost-effective, high volume
production that enables it to spread new
technologies to an optimum user market.

Product design is also based on another
philosophy: that people aren't looking for
a computer — they are simply looking for
a tool that helps them do a better job. By
offering the latest in state-of-the-art
technology at a competitive price, 20th
century technology is brought within
reach of virtually all consumers.

In fact, Commodore is the only major
manufacturer to introduce any significant

new hardware systems this year. In the
past year, for example, Commodore has
invested more than 40 million dollars in
technology and human resources to make
the Amiga possible. Because the company
is determined to lead the market as the
innovator of such new machines, it has
doubled its engineering staff and has
made significant investments in the areas
of computer-aided design tools and
automated test equipment. This year, it
will double its investment in marketing
and sales programs to ensure the
message reaches the consumer.

Today, Commodore offers the widest
available range of microcomputer prod-
ucts, from entry-level computers to
sophisticated 32-bit business systems.
Commodore is well-known for the C-64,
for instance, and is becoming increasingly
recognized for its growing range of
business computers — the Commodore
128 and MS-DOS compatible PC10/PC20
and the Amiga; plus a variety of software.

WOC III Seminars

The seminars to be held at The World
of Commodore HI show are listed here
as completely as was possible at press
time. All the seminars will be held in
the French Room at the International
Centre. Use Entrance C.

Thursday, December 5

2:00 p.m. Machine Language for the

C-128: Jim Butterfield will discuss
machine language for the C-128 at the
beginner level, and then open the floor
to your questions.

5:00 p.m. Graphics by Amiga: There's
never been a personal computer with
graphics like this. Computer graphics
artists from the Sheridan Computer
Graphics Laboratory Will show you
some of the fantastic images the
Amiga's advanced hardware makes
possible.

7:00 p.m. The Sound of Amiga: Amiga
comes with four channels of stereo
sound and a bass response and octave
range that exceed many stereo
speakers. Wes Wraggett, head of the

Electronic Music Department at the
Royal Conservatory, will demonstrate
the sounds of Amiga in jazz, classical
and rock.

Friday, December 6

11:00 a.m. Here Comes Halley's Com-
et: Author and broadcaster David
Ontey will lead a seminar into outer
space.

1:00 p.m. Capabilities of the PC
10/20: Details to be announced.

2:30 p.m. The 'Paperback* Series for
the Commodore 64: the Writer, the
Planner and the Filer for home and
school. Inexpensive, sophisticated and
easy to use — see how these fourth
generation programs can be the
answer to your needs. David Foster
and Frank Winter will lead the
seminar.

4:00 p.m. Graphics by Amiga:

see schedule for Thursday.

7:00 p.m. The Sound of Amiga:

see schedule for Thursday.

Saturday, December 7

11:30 a.m. Graphics by Amiga:

see schedule for Thursday.

2:00 p.m. User Groups: A panel discus-
sion featuring members of the TPUG
Board of Directors and other user
group representatives, and chaired by
TPUG President Chris Bennett, will
address such questions as: What is a
user group? How can it help you, the
user? How do you start a user group?

3:30 p.m. Anything You Want To
Know About The C-128? Bring your
questions to this clinic featuring Jim
Butterfield.

Sunday, December 8

11:30 a.m. The Sound of Amiga:

see schedule for Thursday.

2:00 p.m. User Groups:

see schedule for Saturday.

3:30 p.m. Anything You Want To
Know About The C-128? see schedule
for Saturday. □

November 1985 25

Directory of Exhibitors

The following companies will be exhibitors at World of Com-
modore III. More exhibitors are expected to book space after
press time, so the list is not complete.

A.M. Soft, Scarborough, Ontario

Abacus Software, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Advantage Computer Accessories,

Mississauga, Ontario

Ahoy! Magazine, New York, New York

Canadian Computer Dealers Association,

Willowdale, Ontario

Canadian Software Source, North York, Ontario

Commodore 64 Users Group of Canada,

Montreal, Quebec

Commodore Business Machines,

Scarborough, Ontario

Computer Odyssey, Hamilton, Ontario

Computer Specialties, Melbourne, Florida

Comspec Communications, Toronto, Ontario

The COMTEL Group, Santa Ana, California

CPU Electronic Systems, Mississauga, Ontario

Cricket Distribution, Cobourg, Ontario

CW Communications, Peterborough, New Hampshire

Desktop Computer, Kitchener, Ontario

Digital Solutions, Willowdale, Ontario

Discount Computer Supplies, Downsview, Ontario

Electronics 2001 , Willowdale, Ontario

EMJ Data Systems, Guelph, Ontario

Fiscal Information, Daytona Beach, Florida

FSI Software, Faribault, Minnesota

Gold Disk, Mississauga, Ontario

Grolier/Mindflight, Markham, Ontario

Innovative Technotogies/Comm. Canada,

Don Mills, Ontario

Laing Marketing, Brampton, Ontario
McGraw-Hill Ryerson, Scarborough, Ontario
Micropace Computers, Champaign, Illinois
Microphys Programs, Brooklyn, New York
Mississauga Computer Club, Mississauga, Ontario
Nanosec, Ogden, Utah

Niagara Commodore Users Group,

St. Catharines, Ontario

Norland Agencies, Milton, Ontario
Phase 4 Distributors, Calgary, Alberta

Progressive Peripherals & Software,

Denver, Colorado

THE WORLD OF
COMMODORE III

sasm-iafe

■ ■•■■a 5 ■+"■■•••■■■■■•••■■§•■■•■■■■"■■

:::::::+ - :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

■■■■■■■•r-rroi ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■

The 1984 Canadian
World of Commodore show was
the largest and best attended show
in Commodore International's
history. Larger than any other
Commodore show in the World
and this year's show will be
even larger.

World of Commodore III
is designed specifically to appeal
to the interests and needs of
present and potential Commodore
owners.

Everything about your
present or future Commodore
computer -from hardware to
software, Business to Personal to
Educational - from over 90
International Exhibitors. Price of
admission includes free
seminars, clinics,
contests and free
parking.

26 TPUG Magazine

Micro Processes.

VIC 20 and C-64
Speed Differences

■ - ~ " ! ~92&5* '» t m ' m y ^

by Maloney

The VIC 20 may be small, but it's the fastest Commodore com-
puter (at least it was until the C-128 came along). It has been
suggested that its speed advantage over the C-64 is due to addi-
tional refresh time required to service the 64 's larger memory.
Not so, says Maloney, who in this article presents the true ex-
planation of the speed discrepancy.

I am a software hacker, not a hardware hacker. I also realize
that a rudimentary knowledge of the operation of system hard-
ware is beneficial to me as a programmer. The appendices of
the Programmer's Reference Guide for both the VIC 20 and the
C-64 contain a wealth of information about the ICs in these
machines. Anyone who wants to go beyond 10 PRINT "HELLO"
is a darned fool if they don't give these guides at least a glance.
Every digital computer contains a system clock — an oscillator
that generates a square wave. In the VIC 20 and the C-64, the
clock frequency is approximately 1 MHz. The first half of the
square is called 'phase 1', and the second half, 'phase 2'. The
6502 (VIC 20) and the 6510 (C-64) microprocessor units (MPUs)
need to access the address and data buses only during phase 2.

The VIC breakthrough

Even though the VIC 20 has outsold nearly every other com-
puter in the world, few people acknowledge its technological
brilliance. Commodore decided that insofar as the 6502 MPU
did not need control of the buses during phase 1, they could
design a video interface controller (thus the name 'VIC') to
access memory during phase 1. The VIC is the master; the MPU
is the slave. When the VIC 20 needs access to screen memory
to convert the data there to a video signal, the MPU also has

full access to the memory, and the MPU operates at full speed.
(The only concession is that the memory chips need to be twice
as fast.)

The C-64 difference

The VIC 20's memory chips are static, and do not require any
refresh at all. By contrast, the C-64's memory is dynamic; it does-
have to be refreshed in order to retain its contents. There are
sixty-four clock cycles during each horizontal scan line, and on-
ly forty displayed columns. Thus the VEC-II (the C-64's VIC chip)
has twenty-four 'free' cycles per line. It uses five cycles to
refresh memory, and it does so during phase 1 of the clock. In
short, memory refresh is totally transparent: it does not slow
down the MPU at all.

So why is it slower?

The VIC-II chip is much more complex than its older brother.
It has display modes that the original VIC chip doesn't have.
It also has sprites. Because of these extra features (and the dif-
ference in the architecture of the VIC 20 and C-64), the VIC-II
has to 'turn off the 6510, for certain data fetches. Every eighth
displayed raster line, the VIC-II has to access character pointers
from the video matrix, and it must disable the MPU to do so.

There are also times when sprite data must be fetched: the
6510 is inoperative then, too. All told, the 6510 is shut down
for about six to seven per cent of the machine's clock cycles.
This is the reason that the C-64 is slower than the VIC 20.

If you care to prove it to yourself, type in the following:

10 ti$= "000000"

20 for i=lto 1000: next

30 print t i

Run this program, and note the time. Then add the following
lines:

poKe53265,peeK <53265)and239
40 poKe53265,peeK(53265)orl6

Run this version, and note how much faster it is.

A helpful hint

If you actually performed the above exercise, then you noticed
something more than the increase in speed — the screen blanked.
Bit 4 of location 53265 controls the video display function of the
VIC-II. (The memory refresh function is not affected.) By reset-
ting this bit to zero, we can disable the display, and the 6510
MPU will be in full control.

This is the reason that the C-64 blanks the screen during tape
operations. If it did not do so, then the 6510 might (would) miss
some data. It is also the reason that the VIC-1515 printer will
not work with most C-64 software; the MPU in the printer does
not receive the steady stream of data that it expects, and the
system locks up. The 'C-64 Assembler Development System'
blanks the screen when sending its output to the printer; it will
work with an unmodified 1515. (There is an upgrade ROM
available for the 1515 for approximately $25 (US). Contact Com-
modore for details.)

You can apply this information in a practical way. If your pro-
gram does complex number crunching or searching, and if you
don't need a constant screen display, then just turn it off, and
enjoy a six to seven per cent speed increase. D

November 1985 27

The Revival Of The SuperPET

by Avy Moise

Avy Moise is the principal author of
Super-OS/9, TPUG's adaptation for the
SuperPET computer ofMicroware's OS-9
operating system. This article is the first
of a series describing various aspects of
Super-OS/9.

Sometime in 1980, our research team at
York University realized that the services
offered by the Computing Centre were
less than satisfactory. We noticed a
substantial increase in the VAX mini-
computer's response time during an in-
teractive session. The situation became
unbearable when we could not start a pro-
gram and expect it to run successfully to
completion in a reasonable time (one day).
As a result of our dissatisfaction with
the mainframe computer, we conducted
a survey to find out the kind of applica-
tion programs our university members
run (both students and professors). The
results were astonishing. More than 90
per cent of the users on the system at any
given time were running EDT, a full-
screen text editor. Only five per cent of
the people were executing 'number crun-
ching' jobs.

This disproportionate usage of com-
puter resources is consistent with the fact
that, in a university environment,
students write programs mostly as part
of their course curriculum, while resear-
chers either enter new data into the com-
puter or create new programs to test
their latest theories. The survey
demonstrated that, at York University,
mainframe computers were used for text
entry, rather than for their powerful
number crunching and string
manipulating capabilities.

As a result of this survey, we came to
the conclusion that it would be better to
use a small microcomputer such as a PET
to enter all the data, develop our pro-
grams and correct syntax errors. Once
the text has been entered and stored as
a file on our local disk drive, all that needs
to be done is to dial up the mainframe
computer, upload the files, and execute
the programs that we have so cleverly
developed. If everyone on campus were
to follow this route, it could reduce the
computer overhead by ninety per cent,

thus generating better yield on number
crunching jobs.

For example: I was asked to shop
around for a microcomputer to be used
in an office environment or in the
laboratory. We were looking for a com-
puter that could create documents in true
ASCII form, and that would be able to
perform file transfers over the telephone
with a remote host computer. In addition,
we wanted the computer to be able to in-
terface with any of our laboratory equip-
ment using the IEEE-488 bus.

At the time, I was using the Com-
modore PET models 8032 and 2001,
which I liked for their excellent full screen
editing functions and their easy-to-use
BASIC interpreter. However, I could not
recommend these computers for the
above applications. The main reason for
rejecting the PETs was that they do not
support the true ASCII character set, and
do not have a built-in RS-232C modem
port. Some may argue that we could have
written a simple translation program to
convert the text from PET ASCII to true
ASCII, and we could have used an
IEEE-488 to RS-232C converter box, and
we could have purchased the right soft-
ware packages... True, but we had
decided that our ideal computer should
already have all of the above capabilities
built in.

I was ready to give up, but for the per-
sistence of a salesman in one of my
favourite computer stores, who said: "If
you are so picky, why don't you buy a
SuperPET?"

"SuperPET?", I replied. "What is a
SuperPET?"

A week later, I was among the first to
use a SuperPET, a computer that is one
of the best-built machines Commodore
ever produced, but that never had a
chance to prove itself — until now.

What is a SuperPET?

For those of you who have never heard
of the SuperPET, it is a Commodore PET
model 8032, dressed up with additional
hardware and complementary software.
The added hardware consists of a 64K
memory expansion board, a true RS-232C
telecommunication interface and a
Motorola 6809E microprocessor. The ex-

tra software, which was provided by
WATCOM, includes the following
languages: microBASIC, microFOR-
TRAN, micro APL, microCOBOL and
microPASCAL. All these languages —
even the BASIC — are highly structured,
and support variables with long names,
and subroutine calls with an argument
list.

In addition, the SuperPET comes with
a very powerful screen-oriented ASCII
text editor (microEDIT); a high-level
structured relocating macro-assembler; a
built-in machine language monitor for
program debugging; and a simple ter-
minal emulation program. All of the ROM
kernel and i/o routines are directly ac-
cessible to any machine language or high
level application program through a stan-
dard set of 'jump-vectors', a list of which
is supplied with each computer on the
system disk.

In view of all of its features, we chose
the SuperPET to be used as a local
development station for high level
languages like FORTRAN 77. As a
result, we connected to a remote host
computer only after an application pro-
gram was first written and tested with
the SuperPET. This reduced our connect-
time from six hours per day to less than
thirty minutes per day — just long
enough to upload, compile and run the
programs. When the results were ready,
we downloaded the data onto our local
storage (dual 4040 drives) for further
analysis and graphic display.

After a year of use, we realized that the
micro -interpreters that came with the
SuperPET were too slow to run long and
complex programs, and we sought a way
to speed up the SuperPET.

There are two ways to speed up a pro-
gram. One is to manually convert it into
machine language, using an assembler.
The second method is to use a compiler
(a program that translates high-level in-
structions to machine code). After ex-
haustive market research, we sadly
realized that there were no existing com-
pilers for the SuperPET; nor was it ex-
pected that any would be written.

Another year passed, with very little
professional software development done
for the SuperPET. Only then did we
become aware that Commodore had no

28 TPUG Magazine

intention of supporting the SuperPET,
that WATCOM did not wish to add any
new software to the list of existing pro-
grams, and that all other software
manufacturers were busy writing pro-
grams for the newly-born Commodore 64.
. It became obvious that if TPUG, ISPUG
(International SuperPET User Group)
and the local SuperPET chapter did not
do anything about this sad situation , the
SuperPET (and most likely the PET
8032) would become a thing of the past.
TPUG and the Toronto SuperPET
chapter came to the rescue.

Enter OS-9

In one of our monthly meetings, Gerry
Gold asked me to collaborate with a few
ISPUG members in writing a BASIC
compiler tailored after microBASIC. I
replied that it would take less time to
adapt the SuperPET to run an existing
operating system that supports an ex-
isting BASIC compiler, than to write a
compiler from first principles.

He immediately realized that adding an
existing popular operating system for the
SuperPET was the solution, and may be
the key for the revival of this abandoned
computer. In his research, Gerry came up
with two candidates: OS-9 and Flex. OS-9
was chosen, for two major reasons.

First of all, OS-9 is closely related to
the AT&T Unix System V operating
system. Secondly, the source code for the
OS-9 operating system was designed to
be portable across systems. Bill Dutfield
stepped in at this time to correctly point
out that the SuperPET has only 32K of
contiguous memory whereas, from
reading about OS-9, Bill had found that
some application programs may require
in excess of 40K of RAM. As a result, we
designed an MMU (memory management
unit) to give the SuperPET (when runn-
ing as an OS-9 computer) 64K of con-
tiguous RAM, and 25K of virtual disk.

Gerry presented our plans for a
SuperPET facelift to the TPUG ex-
ecutive, and TPUG agreed to sponsor the
OS-9 project. On January 1st, 1985, a
SuperPET ran Super-OS/9 (OS-9 Level
I, Micro ware version 1.2) for the first
time ever.

We did not know then that our version
of OS-9 was the most complete and
faithful implementation of Microware's
OS-9 Level I. Super-OS/9 is also the
richest, most versatile and most power-
ful implementation of an OS-9 operating
system, thus putting the SuperPET in the
forefront of all 6809-based
microcomputers. D

SIGN ON TO

DELPHI

Special offer to

TPUG MEMBERS

Choose from:

• $10.00 gets you one hour
free and the Command
Card.

• $24.95 gets you three hours
free, the Command Card,
and the System Handbook
— itself a $19.95 value!

Sign-on username: TPUG

Initial sign-on password:
ONLINE

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November 1985 29

Library Additions

TPUG's library of public domain soft-
ware grows month by month. Hundreds
of disks containing thousands of pro-
grams are available to TPUG members at
the nominal cost of ten dollars per disk.
Considering that each disk is packed with
good programs, at today 's software prices,
this is a fantastic value.

In order for the library to keep grow-
ing, our librarians need a constant supply
of new programs. If you have written a
program or a collection of programs that
you think might be an asset to the library,
please send it to: TPUG Program
Library, 101 Duncan Mill Road, Suite
G7, Don Mills, Ontario MSB 1Z3,
Canada. If your contribution is accepted,
you will be sent the library disk of your
choice. If for some reason, your contribu-
tion is not needed, your original disk will
be returned to you.

VIC 20 Disk (V)TL
Presented by Richard Best

Mathematically-inclined users will find
several programs to their liking on this
disk. Funct plot.vSk, for example, plots
third-order polynomial equations in
multicolour mode on an x/y grid. There
is also a very handy and well-written
routine called hex to dec.v, for convert-
ing decimal to hex, or hex to decimal. It
calculates numbers up to 7 digits. Mean-
while, permutations.v lets you enter 3 to
6 items and watch the VIC reorder them.
You might use this program to play word
games or select lottery numbers.

Those with a yen for self-improvement
will be interested in morse code.v, which
lets you practise Morse Code by listening
to random letters played by the VIC, or
by requesting letters to be played. You
can vary the speed, volume and pitch of
the tone. When you feel that you have im-
proved yourself sufficiently at Morse
Code, try typing tutor.v8k, an update of
an earlier release. This program prints a
target word or phrase on the screen for
you to type. The score is printed every
15 words. There are 19 levels, including
capitals and numbers, and there is an op-
tional time limit. Any expander will work.

A handy subroutine that you can add
to your own programs is scrn prnt.sub.
which will generate a text or graphics
screen image (low-res only) on a graphics
printer. Meanwhile, telecommunicators

will appreciate p-term.vl2k, a terminal
program that works with an auto-dial
modem. You can select BBS numbers
from a menu, the data for which is con-
tained in the program (lines 6110 through
6440), and may be updated by the user.
This is a Punter protocol program that
runs from disk or tape. The associated file
term/vic.c2, also on the disk, is a patch
to accommodate 20 K expansion.

The remaining programs on this disk
will only work with a disk drive. One is
drive test.v, which performs five per-
formance tests on a 1541 drive. It checks
accuracy of formatting, read/write,
mechanics and track positioning. Be sure
to use a scratch diskette when using the
program.

Superdir.v is a menu-driven disk util-
ity with a number of handy features. One-
letter commands let you print a directory
on the screen or printer, load a program,
scratch files, check status and more.

Pix loader.vsx is a machine language
loader that lets you load the following 16
files from the disk. Each pair of files
generates a high-quality, hi-res picture
with a superexpander. The show is
menu-driven.

File master. vl2k is a flexible and easy-
to-use file manager. Everything you need
to know to use the program is included
in the menus. The data manipulation
routines are very powerful, and allow
editing, sorting, and printing formatted
output.

v ic
10

4
4

d is
"I is
"J is

"■fun
"hex
"mcr
"scr
"per
"txp
"p-t
"tsr
"dri
"sup
"Pix
"exp
"exp
"cir
"cir-
"r ip
"rip
"ell
"ell
"squ

K <■.'
t -me
t -me
c± p

to
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muta
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erm£
mAi i
ve t
erd i

1 oa
. cu

cu
cula
cula
pie"
ple +
ipse
ipse
ares

>tl
Cu>t-1/1

page £"
lot.v"
dec.v "
o d e . v "
nt.sub"
t ions .y "
tutor . v3K
£.ul£K"
c.cB"
est.v"
r . v "

d e r . V s x "
r v e s + "
rves "
r circ,
r c i r c ,

s
s + "

+ "

prg
prg
prg
prg
prg
prg
prg
prg
prg
prg
prg
prg
prg
prg
prg
prg
prg
prg
prg
prg
prg
prg

3 "squares + u prg

13 "airutol-f" prg

3 "airuol-f + " prg

13 "boat" prg

3 "boat+" prg

13 "Columbia" prg

3 "cclumbia+" prg

£S "file master. ul£K" prg

PET Disk (P)TM
Presented by Mike Donegan

The major program this month is a
freeware offering, Editor 4032, a utility
program that enables you to examine and
edit the tracks and sectors on a 4040 disk.
The loader for this program is the file
editor4032 ldr.f. Associated files include
a data file, editor 4032; numerous word
processor files containing documentation
(editor 00/ wp through editor 19/wp); and
lister, z, a program to print the documen-
tation files. Further information on the
program is available from the author for
a fee.

You will also find two programs to do
with sheep shearing — shears scoring.z
and old shears./; and a program for car
rally enthusiasts, to help keep track of
contestants and their points — rally
system.z. The latter program uses two
data files, open heats. d and open
finals.d.

Jim Butterfield's computer version of
Pentominos is on this disk in a BASIC
version (pentominos. z) and a machine
language version (pentominos.p). In-
structions are contained in a file called
pentominos inst.z.

Four other programs round out the
disk: lottozahlen 2.z (Lotto 649 in Ger-
man); control chr$.z (a table of the con-
trol characters used on various Com-
modore machines); print dir 8050. z (a
utility that prints 8050 directories
alphabetically in two columns, with block
count and addresses); and mag index. 8.

pet disK ( p ) t m

£3 "list -me (p)tm.l" prg

12 "editor 403£ldr.f" prg

71 "editor 403£" usr

3 "editor 00/iop" prg
7 "editor- 01 /up" prg
B "editor 02/up " prg
5 "editor 03/uip " prg

4 "editor 04/wp " prg
7 "editor 05/ljp" prg
4 "editor 06/up " prg

30 TPUG Magazine

Softwar

NAME

STREET ADDRESS
CITY/TOWN/P.O.
PROV/STATE

TELEPHONE

POSTAL/ZIP CODE
MEMBERSHIP NO.

orde
Jar,

TORONTO PET USERS GROUP, 101 Duncan Mill Road, Suite G7, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 1Z3 416-445-4524

To order club disks by mail, send $10.00 for each
4040/2031/1540/1541 disk (4040 format), discount price
5-10 S9.00 each, 1! or more S8.00 each; and S12.00 for
each 8050/8250 disk (8050 format). We do honour
purchase orders from school boards.

disks

These disks are for use with a
Please send me the following:
3 Letter/No.
Code

computer and a .

disk drive.

Description

4040 or 8050
Format

Price

Total S

.00

tapes

To order VIC 20 or Commodore 64 library
tapes, send S6.00 for each tape.
To order PET/CBM or Commodore Educa
tional Software, send $10.00 for each tape.

These tapes are for use with a

If for a PET computer, what model -

3 Letter/No. Code Description

_ computer and a datasette.
BASIC - 1.0[ ); 2.0( J; 4.0f )?
Price

Total $

.00

The prices indicated include postage and handling as well as
Ontario Provincial Sales Tax (if applicable)

□ Cheque/money order enclosed (payable to TPUGJ

DVisa/Mastercard U

\\ Signature

4 "editor 07/uip" prg
7 "editor 08/uip " prg

5 "editor 03/up" prg
5 "editor 1 0/u p " prg
4 "editor It/up" prg
4 "editor 1 £/u p " prg
4 "editor 13/up " prg

4 "ad iter 14/up" prg

5 "editor 15/up" prg
5 "editor lG/up" prg

3 "editor 17/up" prg

5 ".editor 18/up" prg

15 "editor 19/up" prg
49 "shears scoring. z" prg
13 "open heats.d" seq
i "open -finals. d" seq

32 "rally system. z" prg
48 "old shears. z" prg

4 "lottozahlen £.z" prg
13 "pentomincs .z " prg

6 "pentominos inst .z " prg
6 "pentominos. p" prg

33 "mag index. 3" prg

16 "control chr*.z" prg
20 "print d ir 8050. z" prg
12 "1 ister .z " prg

C-64 Disk (C)TM

Presented by Derick Campbell

I have so many submissions for the TPUG
library, that before I tell you about this
month's disk, let me take this opportun-
ity to ask for help. Help! I need volunteers
to assist in making up the monthly disks;
it's too much for one person. If you have
some spare time, and feel up to the ex-
citing task of compiling monthly disks,
then don't wait, call TPUG (445-4524)
now!

This month, we received twelve disks
from the Fox Valley 64 Users Group. I
took the best of their material (we already
had a lot of it) plus some others, and came
up with three disks: the monthly disk, a
graphics disk and a music disk.

The monthly disk has a good selection
of games — educational , adventure and
arcade-style — as well as some valuable
utilities: a disk searcher — to find that
specific string somewhere on a disk; a
new and improved address book; and two
program listers with special formatting
commands — take your pick. By the way,
the instructions for this program can be
found starting at about line 50000. List
those lines before attempting to use it.

The graphics disk has lots more high-
quality KoalaPad pictures, along with a
special printing program to print your
favourites (try Bill the Cat and Daffy
Duck!). The music disk comprises over
twenty songs, some old ('Beat It' and
'Maniac') and some new ('Hard For
Money' and 'Gloria').

I am a new librarian. Send me letters
and disks with your suggestions and pro-

32 TPUG Magazine

grams , and remember to call TPUG if you
want to help out.

Next month's disk will feature the
SIDplayer and over 50 songs! There are
also several disks of freeware that should
be all checked out by then and ready to
release.

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COMAL Book Disks
Presented by Victor Gough

and Donald Dalley

This month I would like to describe the
BOOK series (K)Bx, which is one of the
seven categories in the COMAL library
of over 2500 programs. There are now
ten disks in the book series, which cover
the programs in most COMAL books.

Disks (K)B1 and (K)B7, for both edi-
tions of Len Lindsay's COMAL Hand-

Library Additions

book, cover the examples of keyword
usage with useful programs.

COMAL 80 is Commodore's new
tutorial text for the incredible 2.00 car-
tridge. Its disk, (K)BA, contains simple
(but helpful) programs and demos, and
useful peripheral programs (1520 plotter,
lightpen and joystick).

All six of The Amazing Adventures of
Captain COMAL series are covered. The
Functions and Procedures disk (K)B6 has
many procedures to allow some of the
cartridge features to be included in disk
COMAL programs. The companion book
explains how to make use of them. Any
Captain COMAL publication is available
only from the COMAL Users Group,
USA.

For beginners: TPUG sells an excellent

inexpensive introductory reference guide
to COMAL written by the creator of the
language, Borge Christensen. COMAL
0.14 resides on many of our disks, in-
cluding the original (K)Z2. For people
new to programming, Beginning
COMAL, by Borge Christensen, and
Structured Programming With COMAL,
by Roy Atherton, are valuable texts. The
companion disks are (K)B2 and (K)B4
respectively.

Advanced programmers of machine
language, with the 2.00 cartridge, should
consider the COMAL 2.0 Packages book,
by Jesse Knight. Use disk (K)B9.

Disks for all future books that have
public domain programs will be included
in our library. Any book mentioned can
be ordered from the COMAL User's
Group, USA, and check your local
bookstore for books from Reston or Ellis
Horwood publishers. rj

Communications Corrections

Last month's feature on telecommunications contained a few factual errors. Those
of you who are attempting to use CompuServe and Delphi should note the
following:

• Datapac's number for 1200 baud users is 868-4100, not 868-4001 as stated in
the Getting Started On Delphi article.

• The price schedule for CompuServe given in the article CompuServe: What
Is It? was incorrect. The actual prices are:

300 baud (off-hours): $6.00/hour (US)
300 baud (prime time): $12.50/hour (US)
1200 baud (off-hours): $12.50/hour (US)
1200 baud (prime time): $15.00/hour (US)

In addition to the above rates, there is 25 cent/hour surcharge if you use the
CompuServe 'Gateway' phone line (865-1451 in Toronto). Datapac and Tymnet
have their own surcharges (phone Datapac and Tymnet for details).

• By the way, as this issue went to press, TPUG was still not up on Delphi, but
we will be soon. Keep trying. □

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Name.

Membership # .

Address.

□ Cheque □ Money Order D VISA D MASTERCARD Amounts Currency □ Can. OUS

Credit Card # Expiry date Signature _

Type of disk: D C-64

QVIC 20

D PET

D SuperPET (1 disk set)

Reviews.

Super-C

from Abacus Software

C language compiler
for Commodore 64

Review by George Carter

So why did I spend my one-week summer
vacation learning C, you may ask?

Part one of the answer is that from my
perspective of twenty years in data pro-
cessing, it appears almost certain that C
will be the most important programming
language of the next decade. This is part-
ly driven by the growing popularity of the
Unix operating system, but also has a lot
to do with the drive for easy 'porting' of
software from one machine to another.
Because C runs fairly efficiently on many
machines, with only minor conversion ef-
fort required, it is increasingly popular
for serious program development.

More specifically, C should be impor-
tant in the context of the Amiga, since
the BASIC on the Amiga is dramatically
different from what Commodore owners
are used to, and the assembly (machine)
language is a whole new ball game.
Besides, C and 68000 processors just
seem to go together. (If you read into this
an implication that the Amiga is a large
part of my personal computer plans, that
would be quite correct.)

Next question: how does Super-C stack
up as a tool for developing software? The
short answer is that it works, but it isn't
much fun.

Super-C is a C language compiler for
the C-64 and C-128, with 1541 or 1571
disk drive. A variety of printers is sup-
ported, but a printer is not required. This
review was done using an early-model
C-64 with a more recent version of the
1541.

The package includes an editor for
writing and modifying source language,
a compiler that produces 6502 machine-
language modules, and a linker that com-
bines modules into usable programs. This
is all controlled from a main menu, which
also allows loading C programs for
testing. The final part is a file-copy util-
ity — tested for this review, but not used
extensively, since I also have a PET with
a 4040 dual disk.

Super-C is a complete version of the

language, except for 'bit fields'. However,
the C language is by definition in-
complete; for example, the language
proper includes no input/output facilities
at all. This omission is handled by a 'stan-
dard library' of functions, which every
version of C includes.

The Super-C standard library is
workable, but not as rich as most, accord-
ing to the C Language User's Handbook.
(This 489-page book was written by
Weber Systems Inc. staff and published
by Ballantine Books — Random House of
Canada, Toronto. It is almost guaranteed
to tell you more about C than you want
to know.) For example, the 12 class tests
are missing, along with functions to
translate to lower or upper case.

Super-C comes on a copy-protected
disk; the registration card allows order-
ing a backup disk for 10 dollars (US).
Anyone who is planning to do heavy-duty
program development should consider
this cost as part of the purchase price;
being without the system for any length
of time could be disastrous. Because the
C disk is copy -protected, your programs
must go on another disk. Making a minor
change to a program means the follow-
ing steps:

• load the menu program;

• load the editor;

• swap disks, load your source code,
change it and save it;

• swap disks, load the compiler;

• swap disks, do the compile;

• swap disks, load the linker;

• swap disks, do the link;

• load your program and test it.

Not a lot of fun — a minimum of eight
minutes for a one -character program
change.

The editor is adequate for program
development. One nice touch is an 'extra
text' area. The compiler produces a disk
file of error messages, which can be
loaded and moved to extra text. You then
load your source code and flip back and
forth fixing up your errors. Without this
feature, a printer would be almost man-
datory. But I do wish the editor would
produce standard sequential files that
could be easily manipulated by other pro-
grams. And I did manage to crash the
editor during an extended session of
changes, compiles and tests.

The compiler and linker worked as ex-
pected. None of them is enormous; I wish
there was a combined editor/compiler/

linker for developing small programs
without all the disk swaps.

As a novice to C, I didn't do any pro-
grams that would qualify as benchmarks.
However, a hexadecimal file dump pro-
gram ran very noticeably faster than an
equivalent BASIC program.

The Super-C manual is over 200 pages
of excellent content. Unfortunately, it has
numerous typos and layout errors; the ex-
amples are pretty clean, though. If you
have a choice, avoid this first printing.
The manual does not provide detailed
memory maps, nor is there any indication
of how to add machine-language
functions.

As a development system, Super-C is
a bare minimum. There are no debugg-
ing aids — not even the ability to produce
a cross-reference of fields used in a
program.

In summary, Super-C does provide a
working environment for learning and
using C. The C-64, with its limited
memory and slow disk drive is an
awkward machine for this kind of thing.
Then again, some of us developed 700-line
assembly-language programs on cassette-
based PETs. Something that works is
better than a dream of what may be
available in the future.

George Carter is a Toronto-area consul-
tant, and longstanding TPUG member, H

Three More
Spreadsheets

for Commodore 64

Review by Dave Powell

Cal-KU, from Batteries Included; Practi-
cal*; II, from Computer Associates; and
Better Working Spreadsheet, from
Spinnaker.

Cal-Kit, Practicalc II and Better Work-
ing are three of the better-known spread-
sheets available today for the Com-
modore 64. A few months ago I spent
some time checking out these packages
in preparation for my talk on spread-
sheets at the TPUG conference. I had one
surprise — Practicalc II and Better
Working turned out to be pretty much
the same. Both are written by Sandy

34 TPUG Magazine

Ruby (who also wrote the original Practi-
cal), and seem to have only cosmetic dif-
ferences in the software. The manuals are
similar, too. This certainly cuts down on
the amount of work necessary to review
them.

Cal-Kit was new to me. It takes a dif-
ferent approach to spreadsheeting, based
on giving the user simplicity and just
enough function. The package comes with
twenty prebuilt spreadsheets (or tem-
plates) that can be used 'as is', or changed
to suit a different circumstance. Begin-
ners should get results very quickly with
this approach.

The manual explains things very clear-
ly, step by step. Each template has its
own instructions. The range of functions
may deter experienced users, because it
is very limited. Formulae may use only
the four basic arithmetic operations and
exponentiation. Brackets are allowed,
and SUM works on a range of cells. There
just isn't the huge choice that Multiplan
has, for example, but that could be an ad-
vantage — it's easy! Besides, how often
do you use anything else?

Don't look for the income tax template
advertised on the cover, unless you live
in the US. The Canadian version drops
it entirely.

Practicalc II (and everything goes for
Better Working, also) is the sequel to
Practicalc, which I have always liked. All
of my complaints (see my review 'Three
Spreadsheets' in the November 1984
issue) have been addressed. This product
begins to rival Multiplan in terms of
function, and is easier to use. Everything,
" including numerous help screens, fits in
memory, so there is no tedious waiting
for a function to be retrieved from disk.

Among the many improvements are a
new text-processing facility, individual
column widths, IF-THEN, disk commands,
better printing, and stored spreadsheet
customization (column widths, formats,
and so on). All of this loads in just over
a minute.

Unfortunately, the emphasis in the
manual is on an Apple version, and C-64
differences are documented in a separate
booklet, which is sometimes frustrating.
This is one difference between Practicalc
II and Better Working — the latter has
a single manual that incorporates the
C-64 differences in the text, although it
is still primarily an Apple manual.

This is an excellent spreadsheet, well
worth the small premium in price over the
original Practicalc, and better than most
of the early C-64 spreadsheets. Multiplan
still has the edge in functionality and ver-
satility (Practicalc II can't automatical-
ly tie in separate sheets, for instance) —

but Multiplan is slower to use.
Registered Practicalc owners, have a
chance to buy Practicalc II for half price
— if that option is still open to you, take
it!

You're about to buy your first spread-
sheet? If you're a programmer, get
Practicalc II or Better Working: you'll
appreciate the additional control you get.
If you have business needs, consider
Multiplan, but if you can't find a dis-
counted or second-hand copy, the price
difference (if you care) might make you
choose one of the former two.

Computer or spreadsheet neophytes
can hardly go wrong with Cal-Kit, and
even experienced users might appreciate
the time saved in having ready-made
applications. □

BAID64

from Mikrologix

BASIC enhancement
package for C-64

Review by Dave Powell

BAID64 Utility Program by Mikrologix
Software Company. Available from CPU
Electronic Systems Corporation, 2652
Slough Street, Mixsissauga, Ontario, LlfT
3T2. $49.95 (CdnJ, $39.95 (US).

This product is a mix of a BASIC toolkit,
a DOS wedge and BASIC extensions. The
disk commands are the standard collec-
tion, plus merge and start address com-
mands. The toolkit adds ten goodies to
the normal DELETE, RENUM, AUTO,
and so on. Among these are DUMP
(variable values) and TRAP, which are
useful for debugging. HMEM and LMEM
change BASIC memory pointers, and
HPRINT prints the current screen in
either character/graphic format or hi -res,
depending on the value of the TEXT
toggle.

The major part of BAID64 is the set of
BASIC extensions. These are imp-
lemented by replacing BASIC in ROM by
a customized version. This means, of
course, that programs that- use these
facilities need to have BAID64 resident
first. This makes them more trouble to
load, and non-transportable. Because
BASIC is changed, some peeks and pokes
will no longer work.

The extra commands help with the
movement, selection and colour of sprites
(but not their definition); sound com-
mands (NOTE, PULSE width, RATE
(ADSR), SOUND volume, and WAVE
form); and high resolution commands,

which include drawing straight lines and
single points in a selected colour, and
moving data between two hi-res screen
areas. These extra commands are still at
a fairly low level; for instance, the pro-
grammer has to pack a byte with two
four-bit values for attack and decay
before using the RATE command.

BAID64 allows BASIC lines to be in-
dented, without using colons, and each
line can be up to 120 characters long,
although some limitations are noted. The
manual is looseleaf, and fairly complete.
It needs better examples, and could be
better organized.

This product puts several useful utilities
together in a single package. Many of the
individual pieces can be found in the
public domain, but possibly not in so con-
venient a format. Is that convenience
worth the price? It depends on what your
program library already has, and what
features you would use • □

The Best

VIC/Commodore

Software

by Jim and

Ellen Strasma

from Publications

International Ltd.

192 pages, coil bound

Review by Anne E. Gudz

Pvhlications International, Ltd., S841
West OaktonStreet, Stokk, Illinois 60076.
ISBN 0-88176-U8-6.

This is an excellent software review book
for owners of the VIC 20 or Commodore
64. The Strasmas review word pro-
cessors, business programs, home ap-
plications, educational applications, net-
working (communications), games
(strategy -and arcade) and programming
aids.

The book is well organized and easy to
read. Each review includes the following
information: a description of the product,
who it is sold by and what system it is for
— as well as requirements, approximate
price, format, protection, warranty
details, and even user group rating. Other
aspects such as documentation, perfor-
mance, reliability and ease of use are also
rated, on a scale of 1 to 10.

The book itself is soft-covered and coil-
bound, imitating the 'personal computing'
and 'reference guides' for Commodore
products.

November 198S 35

Reviews -

This book has one drawback. As with
other software guides, the information it
contains may quickly become outdated.
Even keeping this in mind, however, The
Best VIC/Commodore Software is still an
excellent addition to your software
library. □

VIC 20 programs

from Laing Marketing
$9,95 each

Review by Richard Best

Laing Marketing, Inc., 411 Horner
Avenue, Toronto, Ontario.
We need more people like Bill Laing. Bili
recently started Laing Marketing, a
Toronto-based software house that is ac-
tually building a catalogue of low-cost
VIC 20 software, and he sent a few tapes
to TPUG for review. The programs are
all interesting and of high quality,
although there are a few negative points.

Pedes & Mutants

The three space games are generally
good. Pedes & Mutants pits a ship
against mutated creatures, in a variation
on the 'Centipede' theme. Graduation to
a second, slower screen gives an occa-
sional rest from the exciting action of the
main game. Sound and graphics are both
excellent.

Space Escort

Space Escort has an unusual thesis. The
player must escort a freighter to a planet,
while fighting off a variety of aliens and
avoiding space mines and debris. This one
liberally awards bonus ships. Sound,
graphics and action are all good.

Time Destroyers

Time Destroyers, for the expanded VIC,
was a little disappointing, on the other
hand. Having nearly bankrupted myself
on Defender a couple of years ago, I was
thrilled to see the same game on my VIC
20. However, Time Destroyers merely
looks like Defender. The action makes
one think of BASIC, and the aliens seem
to have an unfair speed advantage. I kept
looking at the 6-digit scoreboard and my
3-digit score, and wondering about the
gaming skills of the programmer.

Zargons Kingdom

Zargon's Kingdom, for the expanded

VIC, is an interesting adventure game.
There are five different screens, each fill-
ed with tunnels, ladders, objects to ride

on, and fearsome creatures. The action
is slow, but the game is interesting
enough to keep you playing.

Multisound Synthesizer

Multisound Synthesizer is also more in-
teresting than your average music-maker
program. The program allows the player
to create tunes and save them on tape or
disk. Sound quality is easily modified
through menus, and all four VIC voices
are available. What makes this program
especially enjoyable is the built-in drum
machine that allows you to add a drum
track to the melodies you create. The only
oversight here is that the two-octave
keyboard is not configured like a piano.

All of these programs are on tape.
While we all know tape to be slow going,
I was shocked at just how slowly these
things load. I've concluded that there
must be a lot of copy protection in place
— about five minutes worth, in some
cases.

What's worse is that the loading must
be attended. Zorgon's Kingdom especial-
ly suffers from being on tape, since the
only way to restart after losing all your
men is to reboot. Once loaded, though,
the programs run without a hitch.

The only other complaint I have is that
a lot of the on-screen documentation is
semi-literate. Attention programmers:
Syntax is important — but so is grammar.

Operation Whirlwind

from Broderbund

Military strategy game
for Commodore 64

Review by Dave Dempster

Operation Whirlwind, by Broderbund,
is a solitaire simulation attack. Your army
has to cross two rivers and mixed terrain
in order to capture a town. This is basic-
ally a board game transferred to com-
puter. All those horrible picky little
details, such as phase, remaining
strength, movement, range and blocking
terrain, are quickly and efficiently
handled by your machine, leaving you to
explore and enjoy the flow of the game.
The graphics, colour and display of
Operation Whirlwind are superb. The
screen is split between the tactical display
and a message/data screen. The map
scrolls over three screens wide by about
four screens long. Forest, town, river,
road and rough terrain are well displayed.
Enemy units consist of infantry and ar-
mour, with off-board artillery support for

the bad guys.

As the game commences, the enemy
are all hidden. Your units consist of in-
fantry, light tank, heavy tank, recon-
naissance, engineer, HQ and artillery,
with a range of movement, fire and ability
to take punishment.

The game proceeds through five
phases. First, you designate units to be
'combat ready' or 'dug-in' (where they are
immobile but stronger on defence and
gain strength as they rest). You can then
move those 'ready' units. During this
phase, you may uncover previously un-
seen enemy units as they fire at you,
these units then being identified on your
display. Each of your units has an activ-
ity level that determines movement and
fighting capability. If all a unit's exertion
goes into moving, it will be unable to fight
— in other words, you have apparently
force-marched it to exhaustion! In the
combat phase, you designate targets for
each of your units — this game does not
permit coordinated attacks, per se. The
computer will also not permit you to fire
if you've already done so; if your line of
fire is blocked by terrain; or if the enemy
is out of range. In the final phases, you
designate and carry out assaults on
enemy troops located next to your units;
or, in the case of engineer units, you
assault a river crossing to repair a bridge.

The mechanics of the game are straight-
forward and easily learned, with helpful
prompts negating the need to consult the
well-written and comprehensive manual.
The '0' level of difficulty allows you to
learn and play without becoming
discouraged; however, the higher two
levels offer all the challenge you can han-
dle — and as you complete the final mop-
up in the town, you hear the sound of the
impending counter-attack.

You can save a game in progress and
finish it later — a nice touch, as the game
can last as long as thirty -five moves,
which takes considerable time. I got mild-
ly annoyed in that enemy units seemed
capable of shooting at me (and hitting),
while the computer insisted that blocking
terrain precluded my responding. Worst
of all, the game allowed me to send an ex-
pendable unit up a road but when my next
(and necessary) unit tried it, I hit mines
and was stopped. The game plays in turns
(except that, during combat, enemy artil-
lery begins to shell you); thus, you've time
to think, and the game does not leave you
behind. If you're a board gamer, or new
to wargaming, you might particularly ap-
preciate this aspect.

This is a sophisticated, professional
piece of software that will provide many
hours of enjoyment and challenge. O

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1085 Steeles Avenue West, Suite 405, Willowdale,_
Ontario M2R 2T1

Reviews:

Rhapsody 64

from King Microware

Integrated business

software package

for the Commodore 64

Price: $64.95 (Cdn.)

Review by Louise Redgers

Rhapsody 64 is the latest addition to the
list of multifunction business programs.
It is a word processor, a database
manager, a spreadsheet and a spelling
checker, all rolled into one. This program
is a welcome addition to the C-64 business
software list, which is all too short.

When I followed the directions in the
manual, I was unable to load Rhapsody
64 on my 1541 — the only Commodore
drive that it will run on. When I got a
directory of the disk and loaded in the
first program by name, however, it load-
ed with no problems at all. I then loaded
the demo as recommended and let it run.
This thing drove me crazy as it all flew
by on my screen and I tried to read it, on-
ly to find out later that this is normal
behaviour for the system. After the load
is complete, you can go through the
screens at your own speed. The demo is
impressive in showing off the features of
what appears to be a very easy-to-use
system.

Unlike any word processor I have ever
used on my Commodore 64, with Rhap-
sody 64 you don't need to use embedded
commands — what you see is what you
get. This is a very simple word processor
to use. It requires very little knowledge
of formatting commands, and is therefore
great for the novice. It seems particular-
ly appropriate for the harried small
business owner who may not be a skilled
typist, and who does not want to spend
a lot of time learning obscure command
sequences every time a little word pro-
cessing task needs to be done.

The database manager is equally simple
and user friendly. You can set up a sim-
ple mail list in no time, and use it in con-
junction with the word processor to
generate labels or quick letters. Screen
set up is easy after a few attempts. Once
again, this is a beginners' database. It
lacks the mathematical functions of pro-
grams like The Manager, and the record
manipulation abilities that are possible for
the sophisticated user of The Consultant,
but if these programs are more than you
need, Rhapsody 64 is just great. It is nice
to have everything on one disk and eas-

ily accessible. One very annoying thing
about other products is that you pop in
one disk to do word processing and
another to do your database, and then
you have to move files around to link the
two. Rhapsody 64 also has a spelling
checker — something that is very handy
if your spelling happens to be a bit shaky.

The spreadsheet was by far the most
utilized piece of software for my purposes
in this package. It is easier to use and less
confusing than the old Visicalc, which I
found annoying because of the restric-
tions placed on my ability to type in
headings without running into column
problems after each eight letters. This
system, with the help of the manual and
demo, was very easy to use and manip-
ulate. Good as it is in itself, the absolute
seller is the graphing capabilities that
come with the spreadsheet. Setting up
bar graphs in colour is very straight-
forward, and great if you wish to use the
computer screen to demonstrate your
point. I have yet to see anything that is
easier to use, that comes all in one box
and that takes the spreadsheet data so
readily.

Overall, this package is designed for the
computer novice who wishes to use
business software without the bother of
learning about the computer first. The
manual is written in clear tutorial format,
but lacks a quick help section. For me, the
selling feature was the spread-
sheet/graphing system, which got me
over my phobia of those products. Rhap-
sody 64 is definitely a worthwhile addi-
tion to the software marketplace, □

Thinking FORTH

by Leo Brodie

from Prentice Hall

soft cover $16 (US)

hard cover $23 (US)

300 pages

Review by R.C. Walker

One would guess from the title of this
book that it is directed towards those
desiring to program more efficiently in
the FORTH language. This is only partly
the case, since the techniques presented
can usually be used with any programm-
ing language.

The preface states that a knowledge of
FORTH is not required for this book.
However, all examples are illustrated in
FORTH, so such knowledge would be
beneficial. Those who don't know

FORTH will find enough information in
the appendices to profit from the book's
examples. If you are not a FORTH pro-
grammer now, you may decide to adopt
the language after reading this book.
FORTH is especially adapted to the
techniques presented, being simple and
non-restrictive.

The layout of the book follows the soft-
ware development cycle, from problem
definition through implementation. Tips
may be found throughout, though they
are not applicable in all cases, and some
are contradictory. You will find this to be
true of many of the techniques. Brodie
teaches what most of us learn the hard
way: every problem is different, and will
probably have to be handled in a different
manner — no one technique is applicable
in all situations.

Brodie 's matter-of-fact style is
refreshing. I particularly appreciate his
humour, whether it be an occasional car-
toon, phrase or programming example.
It complements the book without dragg-
ing, as attempts at humour in a serious
work often do. The only fault I could find
was that a few typographical errors
managed to slip through.

In the book's first chapter, Brodie
points out that FORTH has elements of
both high and low level languages, of
operating systems, compilers, inter-
preters and assemblers. This many-
faceted nature makes FORTH hard to
classify. Brodie calls it a programming
environment for creating application-
oriented languages.

The remaining chapters each consider
one aspect of program development,
generally from a FORTH perspective.
Among the topics covered are analysis (of
the problem), preliminary design, detailed
design, implementation and data
handling.

An interesting epilogue discusses
FORTH's effect on thinking. Many
FORTH programmers will tell you that
FORTH is not a language so much as a
philosophy. For some, this is true. Think-
ing in FORTH can improve your ability
to program in other languages. It can
become a way of thinking that has ap-
plication in many areas of your life.

If you are a programmer who wants to
solve a software problem rapidly and
more easily, with results that other pro-
grammers can understand, with code that
is simple and elegant, then this book is
for you. If you are also a FORTH pro-
grammer, this book is dmnbly for you. You
will continually go back to the tips and
techniques covered, and the book will
definitely repay the effort of several
readings. I recommend it highly. □

38 TPUG Magazine

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PRO-TERM 64

INTELLIGENT TERMINAL PACKAGE

Now with VT100 emulations

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40/80 columns in software

X modem protocol

Steve Punter's new C1 protocol

40/80 column display

Informative status line

Extensive Auto-Dial/Auto-logon commands

Upload/download:
(Punter) (X/ON X/OFF) {.IMG FILES)

Complete Disk support, DOS commands, dual

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Dealer and dislnbutor inquiries invited.

Write for our FREE catalog.

Send us your programs. We publish software.

An Epyx Saga

Fast Load

Cartridge

.from Epyx

Fast program loader

for Commodore 64

and 1541 disk drive

Review by Mike Martin

Epyx is selling an interesting addition to
the Commodore 64 computer. Fast Load
is a cartridge containing a fast load pro-
gram, a DOS wedge and a machine
language monitor. Its list price in the US
is 50 dollars, but it is available through
some discount department stores for 30
dollars. There are two versions of the car-
tridge, with big differences. If you have
the first version, you need to send it back
to Epyx for free replacement.

The first version was marketed pre-
maturely, to compete with a couple of
similar disk-based programs. The first
cartridge does not handle access to disk
or printer very well, and is useful mostly
for games. The improved cartridge isn't
perfect, but performs much better. For
example, the first cartridge would load
a terminal program, but would not access
the disk drive for downloads. It would
load Broderbund's The Print Shop, but
could never find the printer. With WP64,
Steve Punter's improved word processor,
it printed fine, but would not save to disk.
(I won't tell you the sad story that accom-
panies that discovery.)

How do you tell which cartridge version
you have? Look at the instruction sheet.
If it came with a photocopy of a plain,
typewritten page, you have the old ver-
sion. Send it to Epyx {1043 Kiel Court,
Sunnyvale, CA 94089) for replacement.
If the instruction sheet in your package
is typeset and on a paper folded into
booklet form, with instructions for the
monitor on the inside, you have the new
cartridge.

The cartridge* plugs into the cartridge
port, but has no provisions for the addi-
tion of another cartridge, such as one
with programming information. The
advertising states that it will "change
your 1541 disk drive from a lumbering

40 TPUG Magazine

hippo into a leaping gazelle" . The gazelle
does occasionally stumble. They say it
speeds up the load from disk by 500 per
cent. In my experience, that seems cor-
rect. Most of the public domain programs
from TPUG work well with the cartridge,
and load quickly. Some disk utility pro-
grams, such as Disk Kit, work fine. Even
most of my heavily copy-protected soft-
ware will work, but it is very important
to run tests of all the features before
beginning an important task using the
cartridge. With the new version, I input
91 measures of music on Master Com-
poser, and then discovered that the pro-
gram wouldn't save to disk. After several
moments of panic, I tried turning the disk
drive off and back on. It worked!

I think the cartridge is well worth the
cost. Changing the default from tape to
disk is helpful. The extra speed in loading
is great. A non-destructive disk directory
is almost worth the price alone. And the
convenience of having it all power up with
the computer, instead of having to load
it in every time, is most welcome. FaBt
Load adds those 'little' features that I
have always wished were standard on the
C-64. D

Fast Load

Cartridge

from Epyx

Fast program loader

for Commodore 64

and 1541 disk drive

Review by Malcolm O'Brien

The people at Epyx must be very pleased.
They've managed to hold the rapt atten-
tion of C-64 users for quite some time
now. Summer Games was very im-
pressive, and a big seller. It was still the
hot new game when Impossible Mission
was released. And Impossible Mission
extended the enchantment. I was amazed
to hear the C-64 do a Boris Karloff
impersonation!

Epyx has a new product — the Fast
Load cartridge — that is proving to be
just as popular. The company's tag line
is "Strategy games for the action-game
player", and they have been immensely
successful in that field. It was somewhat

Shades of HAI

I beg to differ with the remarks in the June issue, suggesting that "the new
versions of (Epyx) Fast Load ... are said to work very well and should give
you no trouble".

I have the version of this cartridge which had an indentation on the back of
the box (number 3 or 4 — who knows?), which is allegedly 'trouble-free'. During
a weekend of heavy BASIC programming, I experienced nothing but frustra-
tion when Fast Load screwed up my directories, putting them into endless loops,
rewriting sectors of the directories where they were not wanted, and producing
what seemed like 57 varieties of other errors.

About the only thing this cartridge does well is load programs at high speeds.
The other 'bonus' utilities are a waste of time — better versions are available
in the public domain. The part which copies individual files or a whole disk loads
in material at the fast speed, but puts it on the new disk at the normal slow
rate. The disk doctor is in hex, rather 'user unfriendly' to all except computer
geniuses. When looking at a directory, you can't stop the listing; and when making
use of the File Utility, you therefore can't look at the directory while perform-
ing operations like scratch, copy and so forth. And the ML monitor is completely
unlike any other I've encountered — Supermon and Hesmon, for instance.

In short, if you want to do serious work with your C-64, 1 would strongly recom-
mend removing Fast Load from the computer; or turning it off, if you have an
expansion board. Merely 'disabling' it by the built-in commands with the car-
tridge plugged in may result in trouble, since some memory locations remain
the same, whether it is 'disabled' or not.

Michael Quigley
Vancouver, British Columbia

Paralyzed printer

The letter 'Fast Load Lament' in the June/ July issue sent me to the word pro-
cessor. I have a lament about Epyx Fast Load that never seems to come up
in reviews. First of all, it loads all of the 'home-made' programs nicely and speed-
ily. It does not load many of my commercial programs. Those that it does load
work fine until I get to the printer activity. Any command to print falls on 'deaf
ears'. The only exception so far has been Net Worth which, however, is
sometimes very difficult to load using Fast Load. I have been unable to print
even from my own simple programs, using the standard Commodore commands.
(I have an MPS802 printer). I dropped Epyx a line about' these aggravations,
and got no response. This represents a monumental flaw to me, since most of
what I do involves using the printer. I regret having bought the program, and
can't believe that no commercial magazine reviewers experienced this defect.

Gerald T. Smith
Florrisant, Missouri

surprising, therefore, to see them bring
out a cartridge-based utility.

And what a utility! There's something
for everyone here. For the new user, the
ability to load programs quickly makes
the cartridge worth having. For the in-
termediate user, there are simple (and
fast!) disk tools. The advanced program-
mer will appreciate the machine language
monitor. I know what you're wondering.
"How fast is it?" Glad you asked.

Most of my computing time is spent us-
ing PaperClip. I went out to buy this
cartridge with the sole intent of getting
PaperClip up fast. When I loaded it in the
standard way it took one minute and
seventeen seconds (zzzz). With Fast Load
installed it took sixteen (16!) seconds.
How's that for an improvement? On an
8032 with an 8050 drive, PaperClip takes
fifteen seconds to load. Needless to say,
I was very pleased.

Let's start with the simple stuff. A $
followed by RETURN will list the direc-
tory to the screen without erasing the
program in memory. RUN/STOP will not
abort the listing, but this is not something
I'm going to quibble about. /FILENAME
(no quotes or > required) will load a
BASIC program . To save a program , just
hit the left-arrow and give the name.
%programname is easier than LOAD
programname,8,1. If you want to save
machine language, or an area of 'raw'
memory, you can use the monitor. Final-
ly, you can hold down the Commodore
logo key and push RUN/STOP to load and
run the first program on the disk.

You'll also want to be able to read the
disk status and send DOS commands. No
problem. Type @ or > to accomplish the
former and follow either character with
the desired command for the latter ( > 10
or @I0, for example, to initialize the
drive). Now you have the simplicity and
functionality of your favourite wedge
without having to load it in.

The Disk Tools will allow you to: for-
mat, copy or BAM copy a disk or copy,
scratch, lock, unlock or rename a file. All
well and good, but I saw something I
didn't like. I formatted a disk in the stan-
dard way, and selected a disk to copy. It
had 30 blocks free. The BAM copy took
eight minutes but, when it was finished,
I was surprised to see that the disk name
and ID had been changed too! You're
treading dangerous ground when you
change a disk's ID. I reformatted the disk
with Thomas Tempelmann's Fast For-
mat and decided not to use that Disk Tool
again. I will continue to use Fast Format
and Fast Backup for those functions, but
will certainly lock, unlock, rename and
scratch with Fast Load.

The machine language monitor has a
number of unusual features, as well as an
unusual omission — no mini-assembler.
This means that there is no way — unless

you're a walking op-code encyclopedia —
to type in a machine language routine. To
do this, you'll have to use another monitor
(like Supermon) or a symbolic assembler
(like PAL). This is a painful omission, and
probably my main complaint with the car-
tridge but, to be fair, the number of C-64
users who are writing machine language
is probably small compared to the number
of users who would like to speed up their
1541s.

It is important to note that early ver-
sions of Fast Load were flawed. This had
such disastrous results as scrambled
directories and clobbered files. There are
three versions extant. The original ver-
sion had a photocopied typewritten sheet
that did not include instructions for the
machine language monitor. Version 2 had
typeset instructions, as does Version 3.

Apart from the format of the instruc-
tions, how can you find out which version
is on your dealer's shelf? With Version 1 ,
if you push the Commodore logo key with
RUN/STOP, the screen will display up-
arrow * . In the newer versions, this has •
been replaced with up-arrow 0:".
Although the documentation says that
there is no way to re-enable Fast Load
after disabling it, there is a way, and it
will tell you if you using Version 2 or Ver-
sion 3. First, type the British Pound sign,
then type RETURN. Select D from the
menu to disable Fast Load. Now type
SYS 57194. If this re-enables Fast Load,
you're using Version 3. Versions 1 and
2 can both be re-enabled by SYS 57176.

All in all this is a very handy utility and,
in my opinion, its pros far outweigh its
cons. So get it, and get it fast. □

Dear Epyx:

I have just this week purchased Fast Load, and my experiences are all bad. I
thought I was alone with this until I opened the TPUG Magazine and found that
a Mr, Krull of Agincourt, Ontario, has also had the same bad problems.

In my case, I purchased the cartridge and, following the instructions to use
the Commodore key and RUN/STOP to load, received only a bunch of garbage
on the screen. At no time did this function work. And in loading a BASIC pro-
gram by typing /filename, I either received a syntax error or the whole pro-
gram was more or less scratched. I say 'more or less' because bits of it would
be retained — like the name.

Thinking it was just me, and wanting to update my household accounts, I
started in on same (I use Personal Accountant by Softsync, Inc.). I now have
no directory for my personal accounts — the directory is gone — and I have no
way of retrieving all those accounts I have already entered. Yesterday I took
the Fast Load cartridge back to the computer store, and they gave me a new
one. This one loads, but the drive or computer locks up, and the file is lost.

Frankly, I just can't afford Fast Load and until these — I suppose you could
call them 'bugs', but I call them faults — are corrected, I suggest that you get
the product off the market. I can't believe that you have not also heard from
other users that there are very bad problems with it.

Anita A. Feick
Sandusky, Ohio

November 1985 41

Products Received

Presented by Astrld Kumas

The following products have been received
by TPUG Magazine in recent weeks.
Please note that these descriptions are
based on the manufacturers' own
announcements, and are not the result of
evaluation by TPUG Magazine.

Chord-Power

Chord-Power for Commodore 64 from
New Arts Co., P.O. Box 2700, Hun-
tington Beach, CA 92647. For current
price contact New Arts Co.
This program, together with a five-page
'easy -reader' type manual, is designed as
a chord reference for guitar players, both
beginners and professionals. The
manufacturer states that Chord Power
will display and play over 8000 chords.

Votalker C-64

Votrax has introduced an addition to
its Votalker family of speech syn-
thesizers that can speak text
automatically as it is entered into the
computer and spell words upon
command.

Votalker C-64's capabilities include
a screen echo that allows al! words,
numbers, punctuation marks and other
symbols to be automatically spoken as
they are printed to the terminal screen.

The unit contains its own amplifier.
speaker and external speaker jack, and
plugs into the C-64 expansion port. It
comes equipped with the SC-01A
speech chip, speaks in unlimited
vocabulary and has a SPEAK command
that vocalizes text printed to the
screen. SPEAK can be used with
numbers, phrases and complex expres-
sions, and has pitch, volume and rate
control to create more natural -
sounding speech.

A MODE command offers a choice
among three types of text vocalization :

• A conversation mode that reads text
in a natural way;

• A verbatim mode that reads text and
pronounces symbols;

The main menu lists the following five
options:

• Display chords (main menu)

• How to display chords

• Chord formula construction

• How to use the function keys

• Quit

When the user chooses option 1, a guitar
fretboard screen appears together with
the list of eight function keys and their
assignments. The user responds to the
question at the bottom of the screen by
entering the name of the chord desired.
The chord is played and at the same time
displayed graphically: the guitar fret-
board shows the notes in the chord and
its formula appears on the screen. The
chord can be displayed in five possible
forms.

Option 2 provides 19 pages of informa-
tion on how to enter the proper chord
symbols, add a note to a chord, and define

the lowest-sounding note.

The third option provides an explana-
tion of chromatic and major scales, and
shows how the chord patterns are
constructed.

I Speak BASIC

I Speak BASIC To My Commodore 6U by
Aubrey B. Jones, Jr., from Hayden Book
Company, 10 Mulholland Drive,
Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey 07604.
Price: $9.95 (US).

Aubrey B. Jones, the author of the book,
describes it as "a field -tested computer
literacy course that introduces students
to BASIC language programming".
There are many books on BASIC pro-
gramming for beginners, but not all of
them are 'field-tested', and this is perhaps
the factor that makes Jones' book / Speak
BASIC To My Commodore 64 different
from all the others. The content of the

Still Sizzling. ...

• A character mode that spells each
word, and pronounces numbers and

symbols.

Votrax says that Votalker C-64 can be
used as a powerful educational tool for
children in the early grades who are
learning to read and spell, or it can be
an invaluable aid for the visually im-
paired who can use it as a talking
proofreader.

Votalker C-64 is priced at $99.95
(US), and is available directly from
Votrax or selected dealers. Until the
end of 1985 Votalker C-64 purchasers
are being offered Trivia Talker II, a
talking question-and-answer game, at
no additional cost.

For more information, contact Tad
Jones, Votrax Inc., 1394 Rankin Road,
Troy, MI 48083, (800)-521-1350 in
Michigan, or call collect (313J-588-0341.

E-Link Interface

Progressive Peripherals and Software
is shipping their newly-released Com-
modore serial-to-IEEE interface. The
E-Link is designed for compatibility
with Commodore IEEE peripherals,
and is totally transparent to the Com-
modore 64. E-Link has an independent
power supply, is microprocessor con-
trolled, and uses no internal Com-
modore 64 memory. The interface will
retail for $99.95 (US).

For more information contact Pro-
gressive Peripherals and Software Inc.,
2186 South Holly, Denver, Colorado
80222, (303)-759-5713.

Mindscape Games

Mindscape has announced three new
graphie adventure games for the C-64
and C-128. Quake Minus One,
Shadowfire and Lords of Midnight

feature colourful, high resolution
graphics and joystick-controlled visual
commands.

Each game's suggested retail price
is $29.95 (US).

For more information, contact Mind-
scape Inc., 3444 Dundee Road, Nor-
thbrook, IL 60062, (312>480-7667. □

42 TPUG Magazine

book, and the way the material is organ-
ized and presented, should appeal to
readers of all ages. It can be used as a
textbook to study from, as a workbook to
go through numerous examples, and as
a reference book in which to look up some
important definitions and points when
necessary.

The book contains fifteen chapters, all
organized in a similar fashion. Short in-
troductions preceding each part tell the
reader what exactly will be learned on the
following pages. Then there is a simple
and brief explanation of each point, sup-
ported by illustrations, diagrams or
tables. Definitions and main points are
summarized at the end of the chapter,
then revised again at the beginning of the
next chapter. Exercises and assignments
are also included in each chapter.

The first two parts of the book deal
with general computer terminology,
describe basic parts of a computer, and
then introduce the reader to the Com-
modore 64 keyboard. The following
chapters teach BASIC programming,
starting with elementary concepts, like
key words, commands and statements in
BASIC, and then go on to more complex
ideas, including arrays, subroutines and
functions.

Charipak-64

Chartpak-64 from Abacus Software,
P.O. Box 7211, Grand Rapids, MI 49510,
Retail price: $39.95 (US).

Charts and graphs are invaluable tools in
analyzing the relationship between dif-
ferent variables such as sales -budget -
time, temperature-humidity, health-diet
and so on, Chartpak-64, designed for the
Commodore 64, simplifies their prepara-
tion. The user types in the data in as
many as four sets, each set including up
to 200 entries, then selects the chart type
(pie, bar, line or scatter chart or graph).

Charts can be printed out in small or
large size. (The small size prints one
printer pixel for each screen point, the
large one is double in both directions.)
Chartpak-64 supports the 1526, 1525E,
MPS801, Epson, Gemini, Okidata (b/w
and colour) and Siemens P88 printers.

Chartpak-64 is a fully menu-driven, in-
teractive program. By choosing a number
from the main menu, the user can input
and modify data, define, display, save and
print out the charts, execute file com-
mands and save/restore the graph screen.
It will handle 'DIF' files and charts, file
conversion and data reduction — a useful
feature that allows four arithmetic opera-

— Products Received

tions on data sets. The following data
reduction techniques are included in
Chartpak-64: data set average and stan-
dard deviation, least-squares and ex-
ponential smoothing. Two-dimensional
graphs can easily be plotted using the
least-squares method.

The manual and the program disk come
with sufficient tutorials to give a good in-
side look into Chartpak-64. Abacus Soft-
ware is aiming this program at business
and schools,

Cheatsheet

Leroy's Cheatsheet for Easy Script

from Cheatsheet Products, P.O. Box
8299, Pittsburgh, PA 15218.

For users who are learning Easy Script

on the C-64, and for those who use it quite
often, but not often enough to remember
all the commands, this keyboard overlay
will be helpful. I use it myself at home.
Switching from CBM 8032 (which I use
at work) to C-64, and using different
word processors causes problems
sometimes, and this is when I really ap-
preciate not having to dig into the
manual.

For current price and availability con-
tact the manufacturer at the above
address. □

Super-OS/9* Is Here

TPUG has implemented the popular 6809 operating
system OS-9* on the SuperPET. Super-OS/9 greatly
expands the software availability and the hardware
capability of the SuperPET while preserving access
to the Waterloo languages and programs.

The cost of Super-OS/9 to club members is $195
(Cdn) (plus $10 shipment/handling Ontario residents
add 7% PST), which includes the cost of a hardware
modification that will not affect the normal operation
of your SuperPET, installation instructions and the
operating system disks.

To obtain your copy please send your cheque or
money order to:

TPUG

101 Duncan Mill Rd., Suite G-7

Don Mills, Ontario

Canada M3B 1Z3

What does Super-OS/9 offer?

• A true disk operating with features found on UNIX*
systems and on the AMIGA.

• Multi-tasking and multi-user capabilit}'.

• Hierarchical directory structure with time/date stamps.

• Programmable file access privileges for increased
security.

Extensive software is available for OS-9, most
of which runs on Super-OS/9.

Super-OS/9 VI. 1 includes an assembler, editor,
symbolic debugger, communication software and ter-
minal emulation package. Available languages include
BASIC09, CIS COBOL, Fortran 77, Pascal, Lisp, C
and others. Application software include wordproces-
sors, spelling checkers, data bases and spread sheet
programs.

TPUG has acquired public domain software and
will assist users in the conversion of commercial soft-
ware to Commodore format.

Portability and Expandability

• Super-OS/9 programs will run on all OS-9 based
computers (like the CoCo).

• Super-OS/9 will support standard disk drives (IBM
format) and the Hi-res graphics board (700 x 300 dots).

• Super-OS/9 software is C compatible with OS-9 68k
and AT&T Unix system V.

For further information call TPUG Inc. at
(416) 445-4524, ask for Alan.

NOTE: If you own a 3 board SuperPET and wish to
acquire Super-OS/9, please call TPUG before order-
ing Super-OS/9, for info about a hardware fix to a
design error in your SuperPET computer.

Super-OS/9 is a trade mark of TPUG and Avygdor Moise.
OS-9 is a trademark of Microware and Motorola.
UNIX is a trade mark of Bell Laboratories.

November 1985 43

Calendar of TPUG Events.

Meeting Places

Brampton Chapter: Central Peel Secondary School, 32 Ken-
nedy Rd. N. on the second Thursday of the month, at 7:30 pm
in the Theatre.

Business Chapter: TPUG Office, 101 Duncan Mill Rd., Suite
G-7, Don Mills, on the third Tuesday of the month, at 7:30 pm.

Central Chapter: Leaside High School, Bay view & Eglinton
Aves. on the second Wednesday of the month, at 7:30 pm in
the auditorium. For 'advanced' computerists.

COMAL Chapter: York Public Library, 1745 Eglinton Ave. W.

(just east of Dufferin) on the last Thursday of the month, at 7:30

pm in the Story Hour Room (adjacent to the auditorium). Note:

location may change in October — for latest information call

445-9040.

Commodore 64 Chapter: York Mills CI, 490 York Mills Rd. (east

of Bayview) on the last Monday of the month, at 7:30 pm in the

cafetorium.

Communications Chapter: York Public Library, 1745 Eglinton

Ave. W. (just east of Dufferin) on the first Wednesday of the

month, at 7:30 pm in the Story Hour Room (adjacent to the

auditorium). Note: location may change in October — for latest

information call 445-9040.

NOVEMBER

MON

TUES

WED

THURS

Eastside

VIC 20

Communications

Hardware

Brampton
Central

New Users

Business

SuperPET

Westside

Commodore 64

COMAL

Eastside Chapter: Dunbarton High School (go north on Whites
Rd. from the traffic lights at Highway 2 and Whites Rd. to next
traffic lights; turn left to parking lots) on the second Monday
of the month, at 7:30 pm.

Hardware Chapter: York Public Library, 1745 Eglinton Ave.
W. (just east of Dufferin) on the second Tuesday of the month,
at 7:30 pm in the Story Hour Room (adjacent to the auditorium).

New Users Chapter: TPUG Office, 101 Duncan Mill Rd., Suite
G-7, Don Mills, on the third Monday of the month, at 7 pm.

SuperPET Chapter: York University, Petrie Science Building
(check in room 340). Use north door of Petrie to access building.
On the third Wednesday of the month, at 7:30 pm.

VIC 20 Chapter: York Public Library, 1745 Eglinton Ave. W.
(just east of Dufferin) on the first Tuesday of the month, at 7:30
pm in the auditorium.

Westside Chapter: Clarkson Secondary School, Bromsgrove
just east of Winston Churchill Blvd.

Are you interested in organizing some other interest group in
the Greater Toronto area? Please let the club office know, by mail,
phone or TPUG bulletin board.

DECEMBER

MON

TUES

WED

THURS

Eastside

VIC 20

Communications

Commodore 64

Hardware

Central

Brampton

New Users

Business

SuperPET

Westside
COMAL

44 TPUG Magazine

Bulletin Board

Peninsula Commodore Users

Owing to space limitations, we no longer publish TPUG
Associate Club lists on a regular basis. However, we are
happy, when space permits, to introduce our readers to
Commodore users' groups on an occasional basis. Readers
in Virginia, for instance, should know about the Peninsula
Commodore Users Group, P.O. Box L, Hampton, VA
23666. It was organized three years ago, and has over two
hundred members. They meet the second Friday of each
month at Christopher Newport College, room 145, in
Gosnald Hall. PCUG publishes a newsletter, and about six
months ago they started a bulletin board that has been very
successful. For more information, contact acting PCUG
president Daniel Hubble, 872-8618.

One-liners

Here's a fast UNNEW for the C-128 that you can type in
after a reset, to recover a crashed program:

POKepeeK (45) +256*peeK <46) , 1 J
sysE0214:dele-te63999

If you were using a graphics screen when your program
crashed, you shouid define a graphics screen in direct mode
before attempting the UNNEW.

While we're on the subject of the C-1 28, Darrell Grainger
recently reported a possible bug in the 1571 disk drive. Ap-
parently, this drive occasionally times out instead of return-
ing a 'read error' message, resulting in a 'device not pre-
sent' message instead. One condition that can give rise to
this effect is if the drive door is accidentally opened during
a save operation. Other kinds of read error may also pro-
duce this effect.

And if you ever want to do an 'exclusive or' of two
numbers in a Commodore BASIC that lacks an XOR func-
tion, you can use the following:

c = <aorb >and < 32767 -Caandb ))
This is equivalent to the C-128 instruction:
c=xor (a ,b )

Unclassified

This space is for the ads of TPUG members. Wanted
or for sale items only. Cost is 25 cents per word. No
dealer ads accepted.

For Sale: 4040 disk drive $700. E. Cowan, Box 605, Parkhill,
Ontario, NOW 2K0.

For Sale: Commodore 8032 computer, 8050 Drives,
MX-80FH" Printer, WP4 + . Basic Compiler, Manager and
Kram. $1700.00/Best Offer. Call Mike (416) 431-1597.

For Sale: SuperPET, 4040 Drive, 4023 Printer, WP4 + ,
Oracle, CalcResult. $2000.00 or best offer. Kingston (613)
389-6115.

For Sale: 8032 plus 8050 dual drive plus MX80F Epson
printer — excellent condition. $2000.00. Call (416)
274-5244.

CBM 8096, 8050, 8023P. Silicon Office, CalcResult,
manuals, more. Best offer. Call Ron (416) 920-1994, days.

INTRODUCING

THE HRT SUPER-RES

GRAPHICS BOARD

This is a graphics board which is universally compatible with all models of
PETs. With Superpets (both 2 and3 boards) It worksequally well on both the
6502 and 6809 side as well as with OS-9. The graphics board is the result of
two years of R&D which began in Nov. 83 with the first prototype. Then
starting in Mar. 84 it was test marketed lor four months through TPUG
Magazine. The original model only worked on the 2001 with a resolution of
320 x 200 At the 84 TPUG Conference the 4016 and 4032 models were
unveiled Then in Dec. 84 at Ihe Superpet chapter meeting the 8032. 8096
and 9000 models were introduced. Over the last year these different models
were field tested in schools, universities, business and homes The HRT
SUPER-RES GRAPHICS BOARD was then designed with the results from
these tests and input from expert users.

The window size is 700 hor. by 300 ver. for the 8032s, 8096';; and 9000's and
640 x 200 for all other models. However the card has an even larger resolution
of 1024 x 512 pixels. The most that can be displayed on the monitor is
determined by the window size but the card supports scrolling left, right, down
and up to view the entire graphics area. This window can be defined to any
size, can be located anywhere on the monitor and can scroll about the 1024 x
512 pixels. The graphics can even be overlayed on top of Ihe text without
interfering (even if both text and graphics are scrolling)
To accomplish this high resolution the board has its own 64K of ram. Another
attractive feature is that this extra memory can alternatively be used as a ram
disk.

The above picture has a window size ol 700 x300 and can be scrolled about to
reveal the entire 1024 x 512 pixels. The picture of the girl is 280x192 and
only one image can be shown on an Apple 1 1 Computer, (the original source)
A large software package is included with the purchase of the super-res board.
It includes plotting utilities, sketching routines, turtle graphics, aigebaric
graphs, animation routines etc.

Ease of installation is one of the important design features. The circuit bnard
simply plugs into the mother board under the monitor with no soldering
required

Please send cheque or M.0. for S200.00 U.S./S225 00 Cnd. plus S5 shipping
and handling (Ontario residents please add 7% Prov. Sales Tax) To HIGH RES
TECHNOLOGIES. 16 ENGLISHIVVWAY. TORONTO. ONTARIO M2H 3M4.
Note: Please specify computer and disk drive model numbers.

November 1985 45

SOFTWARE CLEARANCE!

CBS Educational Software for C-64
For mail order or pick-up

$1 B.95 (Cdn.) each / 3 for $45
10for$125/15for$149.95

Shipping costs 52
Some titles available for Atari, Apple. IBM

□ yHsfro Graver

□ Sesame Streef Letter-Go-Round
O Big Bird's Fun House

□ Math Mileage

'•"*

□ Ducks Ahoy

D Sea Horse Hide 'n Seek

□ Coco-Notes

□ Halt-time

Q Battling Bands
'.". Movie Madness
□ L/gfjf Waves

D Ernie's Magic Shapes
D Big Bird's Special Delivery

3 Fleet Feet

□ 4rgos Expedition

□ Weather Tamers

D Peanut Butter Panic
U Time Bound

Q Dream House
D Railroad Works
Pathwords
r 2 Mafcft Wits

Quantities limited

Call or write to order now

COMPUTER SOFTWARE PLUS INC.

{416)252-2808
1 1 58 The Queensway, Toronto, M8Z 1 R5

TPUG Magazine
Distributors

Dealers: If you would like -to carry TPUG Magazine in
your store, you may order from any one of the following
distributors:

CANADA

Compulit Distributors, Port Coquitlam, BC 604-464-1221

USA

Prairie News, Chicago, IL 312-384-5350

Levity Distributors. North Hollywood, CA 818-506-7958

Whole Life Distributors, Englewood, CO 303-761-2435

M-6 Distribution, Houston, TX 71.3-778-3002.

The Homing Pigeon, Elgin, TX 512-276-7962

Northeast News Distributors, Kingston, NY 914-382-2000

Fred Bay News Co., Portland, OR 503-228-0251

Alonso Book - Periodica!, Alexandria, VA 703-765-1211

Cornucopia Distribution, Seattle, WA 206-323-6247

Guild News, Atlanta, GA 404-252-4166

Micro-PACE, Champaign, IL 800-362-9653

Limited time offer

SSDD-$15.00/box

DSDD - $20.00/box

(Minimum purchase - 5. Delivery extra.

Programmers Guild Products Ltd., 255 ManuLife Place, 10180 - 101 St.,
Edmonton, Alberta T5J 3S4 Phone: (403) 428-6229

Switch

to the highest
quality, lowest
priced brand name
diskettes available
in Canada.

Q. Who has switched?

A. Professional and educational
institutions, national accounting
firms, major engineering firms,
software houses, computer
retailers and the Toronto Pet
Users Group.

VISA

(MottarCard';

Expand

Past

Maximum

Capacity!

At belter book stores everywhere 1 Or 6 issues delivered to your door

for just £1500 (Overseas S21 US Air Mail S40 U.S.)

The Transactor. 500 Steeles Ave. Milton. Ontario L9T 3P7

416 878-8438

Also check out The Transactor Disk and The Complete Commodore

Inner Space Anthology - to us. expansion knows no limits'

C64

Provincial
Payroll

A complete Canadian Payroll
System for Small Business.

• 50 employees per disk (1541)

• Calculate and Print Journals

• Print Cheques

• Calculate submissions summary
for Revenue Canada

• Accumulates data and prints T4s

• Also available for 4032, 8032,
PC-10 Commodore computers

Available from your Commodore dealer

Ouirlbuied by:

ICROCOMPUTER SOLUTIONS

170 The Donway West, Suite 404
Don Mill, Ontario M3B 2G3
Tel: (416> 447-4811

OS/9 Software

NOW AVAILABLE!

Word Processor -
Stylograph III

Mail merge, Spell checker. Menu driven,
fast. Extensive features. Formats to screen
as you work US 149 Cdn $189

C Compiler

A full implementation of K & R standard C,
with double precision variables.
US $120 Cdn $166

BASIC09

A fully structured, sophisticated semi-
compiled (I code) BASIC. See Byte
magazine April 1984. . US $110 Cdn $152

FORTRAN 77

Full FORTRAN compiler. . .coming soon.
US $120 Cdn $166

DynaStar, DynaForm,
DynaSpell

A full screen (similar to microEDIT) editor,
text formatter and spell checker.
US $000 Cdn $000

Other: Pascal, DynaCalc, Database etc., available on
demand.

To Order: Send a cheque or money order (add $10 for
shipping/handling and 7% PST where applicable) to:

TPUG,

101 Duncan Mill Rd„ Suite G-7,
Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 1Z3

Batteries Included

Bayside

Commodore Business Machines

CompuServe

Computer Rentals

Computer Software Plus Inc.

Cricket Distribution

Delphi

Desktop Computer

Electronics 2001

HAL Systems

High Res Technologies

Hunter Nichols

King Microware

Micro Solutions

Midnite Software Gazette

Phase 4

Programmers Guild Products

Soft- Mail

Toronto Computes!

TPUG (COMAL Reference Guide)

TPUG (Disk Subscriptions)

TPUG (OS/9)

TPUG (OS/9 Software)

The Transactor

Wilanta Arts

Xetec

IFC
29

BC
39
21
46
17
29
11
3
15
45
26
39.IBC
47
22

6,7
46
37
22
22
33
43
47
47
19
29

TPUG Contacts

TPUG OFFICE 416/445-4524

TPUG MEETINGS INFO 416/445-9040

Board of Directors

President

Chris Bennett

c/o416/445-4524

Vice-President

Gerry Gold

416/225-8760

Vice-President

Gord Campbell

416/492-9518

Recording Sec.

John Shepherd

416/244-1487

David Bradley

c/o416/445-4524

Doris Bradley

c/o416/445-4524

Richard Bradley

c/o41 6/445-4524

Gary Croft

416/727-8795

Mike Donegan

416/639-0329

John Easton

416/251-1511

Carl Epstein

416/492-0222

Keith Falkner

416/481-0678

Anne Gudz

c/o41 6/445-4524

Louise Redgers

416/447-4811

General Manager

Louise Redgers

416/445-4524

TPUG Magazine

Publisher

Louise Redgers

416/445-4524

Editor

Nick Sullivan

416/445-9865

Assistant Editor

Marya Miller

416/445-9865

Production Manager Astrid Kumas

416/445-9865

Ad Director

Louise Redgers

416/445-4524

Meeting Co-ordinators

Brampton Chapter

Jackie Bingley

c/o416/445-4524

Central Chapter

Chris Bennett

416/782-8402

C-64 Chapter

Louise Redgers

416/447-4811

COMAL Chapter

Donald Dal ley

416/742-3790

Victor Cough

416/677-8840

Communications

Darrell Grainger

416/445-4524

Eastside Chapter

Judith Willans

416/445-4524

Hardware Chapter

c/o/416/445-4524

SuperPET Chapter Gerry Gold

416/225-8760

VIC 20 Chapter

Anne Gudz

416/445-4524

Westside Chapter

John Easton

416/251-1511

Business Chapter

Louise Redgers

416/447-4811

New Users Chapter Louise Redgers

416/447-4811

C-128 Chapter

Bill East

416/445-4524

Librarians

COMAL

Victor Gough

416/677-8840

PET

Mike Donegan

416/639-0329

SuperPET

Bill Dutfield

416/224-0642

VIC 20

Richard Best

416/445-4524

Commodore 64

Deriek Campbell

416/492-9518

V
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RHAPSODY will allow you to have 18 1 /2k of file memory resident shared between

text in the word processor, a spreadsheet, three dimensional bar charts and

a data base, all instantly accessible by windowing to each menu.

All You'll Ever Need !

Suite 210, 5950 Cote des Neiges

Montreal, Quebec H3S 1Z6

Tel.: (514) 737-9335

$64.95

DEALER INQUIRIES INVITED

"1-2-3 orW Sv Tn P r v»y or* Tioa*riorti of Lcrfui D#v«*oom*ni Cc*rDOfa*on

YOU'VE ALWAYS HAD A LOT OF COMPETITION.
NOW YOU CAN HAVE AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE.

Nobody ever said it was going to be
easy. But it just got easier. Now there's
Amiga.™ The first and only computer to
give you a creative edge. Amiga
makes you look better, sound better,
work faster and more productively.

You can't buy a computer at any
price that has all of Amiga's features.
Nor can you find one that" s easier to
use. Amiga lets you point at symbols
instead of learning complicated
commands.

Amiga is friendly, but if s a power-
house, too. It has twice the memory of
Macintosh™ or IBM* PC. It costs less
than either of them and can do every-
thing they can do, better

No other personal computer gives
you over 4,000 colours, stereo sound
and incredible dimension. Imagine
the advantage of preparing business
presentations with colour graphics
and sophisticated animation right on
your computer.

Need to make creative use of your
time? Amiga can do as many as four
or five things at once in separate win-
dows on the screen, Not just display
them. Work on them, No other personal
computer can.

Amiga is IBM-compatible, too. A sim-
ple piece of software teaches Amiga
to emulate the IBM operating system,
so you can run most IBM programs.
You'll haveinstantaccesstothe largest
library of business software in the
world, including favourites like Lotus"
1,2,3, and dBase."

And Amiga is endlessly expandable
and adaptable. You can plug in
printers [almost any kind), modems,
musical keyboards, extra disk drives.
You can even expand the memory to
a whopping 8 megabytes with an
optional expansion module.

See an Authorized Amiga Dealer
near you. And don't wait. Your compe-
tition is gaining on you. Is that fair?

Amiga by Commodore.

®4

Amiga's 4,096 colours give
your business graphics a
visible advantage.

Amiga makes telecommunica-
tions fast, easy and colourful.

Amiga's 4 channels of stereo
give you a sound advantage

AMIGA GIVES YOU A CREATIVE EDGE

"AmtgaisatrademorkofGomrrrcdOfe-Arrtga.lnc. 'T/actntosh isatradernartiiceraed to Apple Computs. Inc. * M

•Lotus isorecisteted trademark oflohBDovotopment Corporation 'dBase isategistered trademark of Ashton-lato, Inc. ? 1985. Commodore Business Machines Limited

SEE AMIGA AT WORLD OF COMMODORE III, INTERNATIONAL CENTRE, TORONTO, DECEMBER 5-8

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